Banjo-Kazooie: The Novel
by TabbyBri
Summary: When Banjo the bear's little sister, Tooty, is kidnapped by the evil witch Gruntilda, Banjo and his friend, Kazooie, a loud-beaked breegull, go into the witch's lair to save her before it's too late. A novelization of Banjo-Kazooie. Discontinued.
1. The Fair Bear's Trapped In The Lair

**Hi there! Since this is a novelization, it will have most of the dialogue that appears in the game, as well as conversations between characters where there is no dialogue. I hope you like it, and I will try to update frequently.**

A storm brewed above Spiral Mountain, casting the land into its shadow. Dark and ominous, the clouds were a swirl of poisonous green. Occasional bolts of lightning rent the sky with a crack and resounding boom, the bands of electricity itself tinged somewhat green by the clouds that surrounded it.

In a circular room, adorned with torches whose flames burned acid green, in a tower placed high in the witch Gruntilda's lair, a thick green fog billowed, mirroring the storm outside. If one were to look closely, as the clouds of fog waxed and wan, one would be taken aback at the scene inside.

Nothing in the beautiful valley outside this lair could prepare a curious visitor for the sight: A hideous witch who had stuffed her considerable bulk into her usual black robe. She wore a purple and pink striped scarf wrapped around her ugly neck, and a pointed, wide-brimmed witch's hat upon her lank black hair. Gruntilda Winkybunion was a fright to behold.

The green-skinned hag stood in front of her cauldron; a rather useful companion of many years named Dingpot. She used Dingpot regularly and in a variety of ways, none of which could be called pleasant for the unfortunate cauldron.

At this particular moment, Dingpot's duty was keep his mistress up to date on who was the loveliest creature around. Grunty fully expected Dingpot to tell her that she, herself, was the loveliest- who else could it be?

She had never asked Dingpot to perform this specific duty before, but she had recently heard of a fellow witch who had done so. In her vanity, Grunty figured that she would give it a try herself. Surely a cauldron would do just as well as, and likely better than, a mirror would for such a question? After all, a cauldron is the proper tool for any self-respecting hag to use.

Grunty grinned expectantly as she looked into the reflective surface of the potion Dingpot held, and, rhyming as she had always done since she was just a little witch, smugly asked; "Dingpot, Dingpot by the bench, who is the nicest looking wench?"

Dingpot answered, attempting to ignore that fact that the disgusting witch was picking her nose as he did. "Why it's Grunty any day, she really takes my breath away..." Dingpot coughed at the end of this statement, which wasn't truly a lie; Grunty did take his breath away, just not in the way his Mistress expected.

Grunty flicked her fingers clear before she responded, feeling unsurprised by this confirmation of her magnificence, which, she thought, was obvious to anyone who saw her. "Yes, you're right, I'm rather proud. My looks stand me out from the crowd!" she crowed arrogantly.

That was undoubtedly true.

"Err..." he said hesitantly, uncertain whether it was wise to tell Gruntilda of this. "But there is this girl..." he trailed off, waiting for the inevitable explosion.

He did not have long to wait. Grunty let out a screech of anger and disbelief. Placing her hands upon her rounded sides and staring down into Dingpot's depths furiously, she questioned sharply, "What d'you mean, this cannot be, there's no one prettier than me!"

An image of a young honey bear appeared, shimmering on the surface of the green potion like a snap-shot. The bear was adorable. She wore golden pig-tails tied back with purple bands, her brown fur looked soft and fluffy, and her eyes, wide and blue. She held a flute up to her muzzle, on which she held a happy smile.

"Why, it's Tooty, young and small. She's the prettiest girl of all!" Dingpot announced, deciding that since Gruntilda was already angry, he might as well tell the truth.

Grunty flew into a rage. Then, letting out a final screech, she grabbed her cauldron by his rim. Glaring down at Dingpot, she spat, "No, no, no, you must be mad, nicer beauty can't be had!" She placed her hands back on her hips and shook her head repeatedly as she finished.

Continuing with his course of honesty, Dingpot replied; "Unfortunately I think you'll find," the cauldron winced as Grunty, her bulbous yellow eyes furious, began pounding her fists on his rim, shaking her head once more, but continued nonetheless, "it's Tooty, she's cute and kind!"

The witch spun to face the door, and waddled rather quickly out of the tower, her sharp-toothed broomstick following behind. "Well, we'll see about that!" she said, forming the beginnings of a plan as she started down the steps toward the rest of her lair. Her high-pitched, ominous cackle echoed throughout the lair.

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The next day, Tooty the honey bear ran down the well-worn path that led to the cozy little house where she, her brother Banjo, and their friend Kazooie lived. The young bear had on a red shirt with a yellow star emblazoned on the front, and bright purple pants, which matched well with the bands that held her pig tails in place.

The day before, Tooty had finally managed to convince her brother to take her on an adventure. Banjo hadn't been very enthusiastic when his younger sister had told him about her idea to go exploring beyond the sheltering walls of their safe little home, which was a very nice place to live in spite of Gruntilda's Lair looming over all of Spiral Mountain. Banjo would much rather stay in their house and the surrounding area, preferring the calm predictability that was life on Spiral Mountain over the much more unstable life that was that of an adventurer.

Tooty couldn't wait to get going. Unlike her older brother, she loved the thought of adventure and exploration.

She ran down the slope, stopping in front of the molehill of her friend, Mr. Bottles the mole, which was placed just next to the path that led from the fenced in yard that surrounded her house.

Jumping up and down in excitement, she waited impatiently for the mole to come out, which he did quickly, perhaps feeling the tremors her jumping caused in his underground home.

"Hi there, Tooty," her mole friend said, standing on top of his molehill, his blue eyes blinking down at her through his thick, red-rimmed glasses. "What are you going to do today?"

The plump, black-furred mole called Bottles had on his favorite sleeve-less red-and-orange checkered jacket today, and, as usual, he was continuously scratching his head and side. Once, Tooty had asked him why he was always so itchy, and Mr. Bottles had explained that it came from living underground. It was impossible to get every bit of dirt out of your fur when you were constantly burrowing through the earth.

Bottles was kind and was always ready to listen to the young bear's news of the day. Tooty wasn't exactly sure how old Bottles was. She knew there was a Mrs. Bottles Mole, so he was much older than Tooty was. But that was okay, because he was nice. Tooty had known the mole for a few weeks now, though Banjo and Kazooie had yet to meet Bottles.

"When my big lazy brother wakes up, we're going on an adventure!" Tooty told him excitedly, still jumping in place.

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Inside the house, Kazooie, the red-crested breegull, poked her head and wings out of the blue backpack that hung on a coat stand just in front of the window. It was in this backpack that Kazooie spent much of her time, simply because the backpack was soft, made a good nest, and Banjo carried it around all the time, meaning that Kazooie didn't have to walk.

She could easily hear Tooty's voice floating through the open window as the little bear announced their plan to go on an adventure... as soon as Banjo woke up. Kazooie looked over at her bear friend. Banjo was still sound asleep, snoring loudly, and, knowing him, was probably dreaming about honey.

Banjo was a good bear, but Kazooie wished that he was a little less content to sit around doing nothing. It got boring rather quickly. The breegull flapped her red and yellow feathered wings a few times before folding them a little. "Wake up," she squawked in Banjo's direction. "I want to go on an adventure too..."

The bear didn't stir. Kazooie sighed.

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Grunty laughed as, riding on her broom, she flew out of the entrance to her lair, which she had had shaped into her image. She arched to the side, heading toward the little bear's house, which was placed in a corner of Spiral Mountain's valley. "If Tooty thinks she's fairer than me, I'll steal her looks and ugly she'll be!" she vowed vehemently to herself, circling high in the sky as she prepared to land.

Grunty had spent all night making a plan, and she had come up with the perfect solution, If the potion Dingpot held said the little honey bear was prettier than Grunty was, then the obvious course of action was to take Tooty's looks for herself. It would leave Tooty hideous, and Grunty more beautiful than ever. It was perfect. And it would be done because no one was allowed to be lovelier than was Gruntilda Winkybunion. It was just not acceptable.

Down on the ground below, Bottles caught sight of the witch flying above, though she was too far away for the mole to make out clearly. "Is that your brother?" Bottles asked Tooty, pointing to the sky.

"Where, Mr. Mole?" Tooty asked. "I can't see him..."

"Up there in the sky!" Bottles said, still pointing.

Tooty looked upward. "I don't think so. Who is that?" she wondered.

Just then, Grunty's cackle floated down to them. Tooty started shaking, frightened by the evil sounding laugh. And that was before the witch spoke. "Come to me, my little pretty, you'll soon be ugly, what a pity!" Grunty said, her tone viciously gleeful, as shed swooped low to the ground and skimmed above the grass, heading toward the young bear.

Kazooie's back was to the window, and she tried unsuccessfully to twist in her backpack to look outside, wondering what was happening. Then she heard Tooty's voice, loud and scared, punctuated by thunks and thuds. "Let me go, you ugly old hag!"

"Don't scratch and bite, my little bear, you'll soon need bigger underwear!" _What? _Kazooie thought, bewildered. Whatever was happening, it certainly sounded like Tooty was in trouble. Alarmed, she continued to twist back and forth in an attempt to see outside.

"Oh no, she's got her!" another voice yelled, the same one Tooty had been talking with before the trouble started. "Somebody... help!"

Kazooie stopped trying to look outside and turned her head toward the sleeping honey bear. "Banjo!" she yelled. "Wake up... Now!" She had been prepared to wait for the bear to wake up before they went on the adventure they had planned with Tooty, but now was no time for him to be sleeping.

Banjo yawned, stretching his arms out to either side as his blue eyes opened. "What do you want, Kazooie?" he asked sleepily, yawning again.

Kazooie rocked her backpack back and forth, and with it the stand, as she said, "Let's get outside, there's trouble!" She let out a startled caw as she rocked the stand too hard and it tipped to the side, knocking the backpack and its occupant to the floor.

Gruntilda laughed once more; loud, shrill, and echoing, the sound was easy to hear all around Spiral Mountain.

Banjo jumped out of bed and quickly righted the stand and backpack. "Kazooie, what's going on?" he asked, scooping up the pack and putting it on, completing his usual look of blue backpack, yellow shorts and shark-tooth necklace.

"It sounded like something happened to Tooty." Kazooie answered, flapping her wings impatiently. "We gotta get out there!"

"Tooty!" the bear yelled. Banjo, with Kazooie on his back, ran out the door.


	2. Doing the Spiral In Style

**Hi, again! I had to change some of the dialogue so there would be no mention of the buttons on the controller, but I tried to change as little as possible. It was fun to develop the characters of Banjo, Kazooie and Bottles, and this chapter gave me a lot of opportunity to do so. I hope you like it. **

The duo was just exiting the yard when a mole with glasses popped out of the molehill in front of them, clearly wanting to talk to them. Banjo stopped running, and Kazooie poked her head and wings out of the pack to see why.

"Listen up! I'm Bottles, the short-sighted mole," the mole introduced himself. Kazooie recognized his voice as the one Tooty had been talking with.

"I'm Banjo, and this here's my buddy Kazooie," Banjo said, polite even in these circumstances.

Bottles peered curiously at Kazooie though his thick glasses. "Sure is a strange looking buddy, Banjo. Can it talk?" he asked tactlessly.

Why that lousy little... "Better than you can, Goggle Boy!" Kazooie snapped, her feathers fluffing out in anger.

Choosing to ignore that in face of the situation, Banjo asked in concern, "What was all that noise about, where's my sister, Tooty?"

"The ugly witch, Gruntilda, swooped down out of the sky and grabbed her!" Remembering the problem, Bottles was instantly frantic, his blue eyes widening behind his glasses.

Banjo was horrified; his sister had been kidnapped by an evil witch! The stricken bear was momentarily unable to speak, picturing his sweet little sister in the clutches of that witch.

"Calm down, Geeky, we'll get her back!" Kazooie, who was still irritated by the mole's comment regarding her ability to talk, said. "Where did she go?"

"She flew up to her mountain lair!" Bottles said, looking up at said lair that was above and behind him. "It's really dangerous, so you'll probably need some training before you go up there." He looked back at the pair, examining them as if assessing them. "Do you want me to teach you some basic Moves? Or do you think you're already good enough?"

_This mole, teach us Moves? _Kazooie internally scoffed. _Yeah, right._ She opened her beak to speak, but Banjo got there first.

"We'd like some help, Bottles," he accepted gratefully. "What do we do?"

"Explore this area and look out for my molehills," the bespectacled mole responded. "Stand next to them and call me. See you soon!" Bottles burrowed quickly down into the ground, tossing dirt into the air.

Kazooie glared at her bear partner. "We don't need Goggle Boy's help!" she said in annoyance. "I could beat that witch right now!"

Banjo sighed, his worry for his sister obvious. "Maybe, Kazooie. But Bottles might be able to help us, and I don't want to do anything that risks our being able to save Tooty, like not knowing the Moves Bottles can teach us."

"Fine," Kazooie said reluctantly. "They just better be worth it." Then she thought of something. "Why doesn't he just teach us now? Why do we have to follow him all around the place knocking on his molehills?"

Bottles popped his head back out of the molehill in front of their house. "Because," he said, evidently having heard Kazooie's irritated question, "each of my molehill's are placed in an area where it would be easiest to practice the Moves I plan to teach you from that specific molehill. It would be best if you found me there." Then the mole dove back into the ground before they could answer.

"That makes sense." Banjo said, starting up the slope that led away from their small, blue-colored house.

Kazooie nodded. It did make sense, though that didn't make it any less annoying to have to search for that crusty clawed mole's dirt piles.

Traveling along the well-trodden road, the duo reached the top of the slope. Spiral Mountain, for which this entire area was named, stood directly in front of them. As its name suggested, Spiral Mountain had a path circling around it in a steadily rising spiral shape. At the top of the cylindrical mountain was the bridge that led into Grunty's Lair.

Circling the mountain was a moat of clear blue water, another wooden bridge spanning the gap it created, itself surrounded by the rest of the valley, of which Spiral Mountain was placed in the very center. The moat was fed by a steam that flowed from a waterfall that poured straight down a sheer cliff wall on one side of the valley.

Green grass covered the ground in all directions, occasionally giving way to higher grass stalks, which shone a bright golden hue. Several trees dotted the ground here and there, their leaves stirred occasionally by the light wind. The cliff walls that bordered the valley dipped inward in places, creating hollows somewhat sheltered from the rest of the area. Banjo's house was built in the deepest and lowest of these hollows, a secluded area set away from the rest of the valley.

Overall, the beautiful scenery and moderate climate made Spiral Mountain quite a lovely place to live, even taking into account the menacing witch's lair built above the valley.

From the top of the slope, facing Spiral Mountain, the bear and bird had two possible directions from which to choose. To the right stood a flat-topped hill that was nestled against one side of the bordering cliffs. It rose above the ground and had a path running from the bottom to the top. Off to the left, the path led toward the waterfall and branched off into one of the valley's hollows.

The two friends chose the path to the left. They then turned into the hollow, which had several tree stumps marking its floor, and was a little lower than the surrounding ground. There were other similar hollows. At the entrance to the hollow was a molehill. Banjo ran up to it.

"Errr... Anyone home?" Banjo asked, unsure of how to call out the mole.

Bottles' head appeared quickly, and, shaking dirt from his glasses, he pulled himself out of the ground. He looked at the two of them thoughtfully. "Can you show me a jump, Banjo?" he asked suddenly.

"Alright," Banjo agreed, a little confused. It seemed a strange thing to ask. Bottles said he would teach them Moves, and Banjo reasonably assumed he meant Moves that they had not yet learned. Obviously, Banjo already knew how to jump. The honey bear jumped in place anyway, thinking that Bottles must have a reason. Bottles frowned slightly.

"Hmmm... Your jump could do with some help," he said.

"Pah!" Kazooie scoffed, rolling her eyes. "What do moles know about jumping?"

"More than you!" Bottles retorted. "Your jump doesn't have enough power in it," he said to Banjo. "You need to bend your legs a little more, and push off a little harder. And it might help to bend your legs after you jump, so that if you're trying to get up to a higher platform, you'd be less likely to hit it. Give it a try."

"Okay," Banjo said. He jumped off the ground, trying his best to follow Bottles' instructions. His jump was slightly higher than was his previous one.

"That's a little better," Bottles said. "But it still needs some work." The mole pointed toward one of the stumps that littered the hollow; a relatively tall one that was near a wall. "Keep trying the jump until you can jump up onto that stump," he told Banjo.

"Alright, Bottles," Banjo agreed. He didn't think he could reach that one yet, and he wasn't very used to jumping, so he decided to try practicing with the highest jump he could do at the moment. He went over to the shortest stump in the hollow, which was right in the center.

Banjo jumped up onto this stump easily enough, then he jumped back down again, and then back up, trying to do as Bottles had told him.

As he worked, the mole called instructions over to him from where he stood on the molehill. "Bend your legs a little more than that," he said. "Don't hold yourself tense when you're in the air, it makes it more difficult to land without getting hurt."

Eventually, after a short while of jumping up and back down the smallest stump, Banjo noticed that there was a definite improvement in the height of his jump, thanks to Bottles' tutoring. He decided to try and get to the higher stump that Bottles had pointed out.

The honey bear walked over to the stump, which rose above his head. He stared at it doubtfully, it seemed unlikely that he would be able to jump that high, but Bottles had asked him to jump onto this stump, so the mole clearly believed it was possible to do so. And Banjo had been jumping much higher the last few times than he was when he started.

Banjo leapt upward and though his paws just barely cleared the stump, he landed on top. "I did it!" he said, feeling proud, and rightfully so; he had just jumped onto something that rose several feet above his head.

"Very good," Bottles said with a smile. "Now there is another kind of jump I want to teach you."

"What's that, Bottles?" Banjo asked, wondering how there could be more than one kind of jump.

"It's called the Feathery Flap." The mole looked at Kazooie. "C'mon, Feathers... you can give him a hand."

"Why?" Kazooie asked, irritated. "I'll look silly, I know it!"

Ignoring the bird's comment, Bottles began to explain how to do the Feathery Flap; "Banjo, you jump, then Kazooie can flap her wings in the air for a double jump!"

Banjo nodded thoughtfully. He'd always wondered how it felt to have wings and maybe fly, especially since befriending Kazooie, who, as a bird, had the potential ability to fly, though she hadn't yet learned how. Now he could have a bit of that experience. "Ready, Kazooie?" Banjo asked.

"Fine," the scarlet breegull sighed, raising her wings slightly.

Banjo jumped up high, and at the height of his jump Kazooie flapped her wings quickly, holding the duo aloft for a few extra seconds before they dropped back to the ground, landing lightly. He was thrilled. That was fun!

As Banjo stood grinning, Kazooie turned to Bottles, clearly impatient to get on with the witch hunt. "That's it, we're ready to move on!" she announced.

Bottles shook his head. "Not until you learn this one," he insisted. "First you must stand like this..."

"What, wearing ridiculous glasses and a silly grin?" Kazooie interrupted rudely.

"I'm not listening..." Bottles said, looking at Banjo rather than the smart-beaked breegull. "Crouch down, then backflip while the feather-duster helps get you more height with her wings for the mighty Flap Flip jump!"

Banjo stared at the mole in shock. "Back-flip?" he said incredulously.

"Just do it, Banjo. I want to get this over with so we can go after the witch!" Kazooie squawked, annoyed.

"Alright..." Banjo agreed uncertainly.

The honey bear crouched with his fore-paws placed on his head and the end of his muzzle nearly touching the grass, then threw himself into a jump, trying to flip backward as he did. Kazooie helped by stretching her wings out to either side and then throwing them back and down.

They got half-way through the Flap Flip, so that Kazooie's beak was pointing at the grass and Banjo was facing the sky, then they fell back toward the ground, continuing the flip so that Banjo ended up falling on his stomach, his breath whooshing out with a painful _oumph _as he landed. Kazooie fell safety on his back, having withdrawn fully into the backpack just before they hit the ground.

"Ow..." Banjo complained, picking himself up and standing, rubbing his nose where it struck the ground.

"You almost got it!" Bottles encouraged. "Try again!"

Resigned to the fact that he would likely not be getting a break anytime soon, Banjo crouched once more, and, as Bottles had told him, tried the Move again.

After a few more semi-successful attempts, and a few more collisions with the ground, the bear and bird managed to complete the Flap Flip, flipping completely over in mid-air to drift toward the ground slowly thanks to Kazooie's outstretched wings, and Banjo landed on his paws. Despite the multitude of small bumps and bruises he had acquired while learning the Flapflip, he had to admit that the Move was useful; it got him much higher than any of the other jumps did, and he guessed that it would come in handy inside Gruntilda's Lair.

"That's all the jumps," Bottles told them, sounding pleased. "Keep practicing!" He dove once more back into his molehill. Then he poked his head back out a moment later, before they could start to search for another molehill. "I put something that will help you at the top of the highest stump; you can only reach it with the Flap Flip." Then he disappeared once more.

Wondering what Bottles had left for him, Banjo wasted no time in walking over to the highest stump in the hollow; the one that was farthest back and to the right. With Kazooie's help, he backflipped up onto it, stumbling slightly as he landed on the soft, slightly crumbling wood.

What Bottles had put there was easy to see. A golden hollow hexagon that sparkled in the sun rested on one of its sides in the center of the stump. Curious, Banjo stepped over to it and picked it up.

The bear let out a yelp of shock and dropped it, jumping backward and nearly toppling off the stump, as the mysterious object started_ talking._

"I'm an Extra Honeycomb piece!" it said in a voice that had a strange buzzing sound to it, rather like the sound bees make, though it had no visible mouth with which to speak. "Collect six of us to increase your health and strength!" Then the Honeycomb fell silent.

Banjo stared at it for a long, silent moment. He glanced around, but there was no one in sight who might have been the speaker besides Kazooie, himself... and the Honeycomb. And the voice had sounded as though it was coming from that. He turned his gaze back on the shiny hexagon, eying it in disbelief.

An inanimate object just spoke to him. That was naturally somewhat worrying. He wondered whether he had imagined it.

He looked back at Kazooie to see if she was glaring at him in irritation, wondering why he had yelped and dropped a relatively unobtrusive thing as though it had bitten him, and was now standing here frozen in shock. But no, Kazooie was also staring at the thing that was apparently a talking Honeycomb. Her beak was open in shock. It was clear she was as startled as her partner.

So that ruled out the possibility that he was crazy and hearing things. Unless Kazooie was also insane and was having the same delusion about a talking empty Honeycomb, which Banjo thought was unlikely.

Just to make sure, Banjo said, "Kazooie, did you hear that Honeycomb, uh, talk just now?"

"Just grab it, Banjo, if it came from that mole it's bound to be weird." his friend replied, recovering from her shock.

"Bottles left it here, so he had to have known it could talk, and he said it would help us. So I'm sure it's safe," Banjo said, almost to himself, before stepping back toward the Honeycomb once more. Because it could talk, and was therefore likely to be sentient, Banjo was careful as he picked it up. "Hello, there, Mr. Honeycomb." Banjo hoped that Mr. was the right thing to call it. "Excuse me, but did you say that there are five more of you?"

The Honeycomb remained silent. Banjo frowned, studying it. Its surface was hard, and it didn't seem to be alive in any way. It certainly didn't seem to be breathing, and Banjo wondered for a moment if talking hollow Honeycombs would actually need to breathe.

"Well, I'll just put you in my backpack," Banjo said to it. "Okay, Kazooie?" he asked the breegull.

"You're not putting that thing in here with me!" Kazooie exclaimed.

"Please, Kazooie, I have a feeling this Honeycomb, and the others it said to collect will come in handy later, I don't think it's a good idea to leave it behind. And the backpack stretches, so it won't take up very much room, will it?" He looked hopefully at his friend. He didn't like the thought of trying to carry this Honeycomb, and others if they find them, around in his paws constantly during the journey, it would be very hard to do so, though he could hardly force the matter; the backpack was Kazooie's nest, after all, so he couldn't store anything in it without her agreement.

Kazooie narrowed her eyes for a moment, then rolled them with an exasperated sigh. She shifted to the side. "Fine, toss it in," she muttered.

"Thanks." He placed the Extra Honeycomb in the blue pack, then walked back out of the tree stump-filled hollow in search of the next molehill.

Once more heading left along the path, the bear and bird quickly found it next to the moat. Bottles had dug it far enough away from the water that the molehill was in no danger of crumbling into it.

"Hello, Bottles?" Banjo said, stopping in front of the mound of dirt.

Like before, Bottles appeared quickly, poking his head out and then pulling himself up to stand on top of the molehill.

"Bottles, Kazooie and I made that Flapflip onto that really high stump and collected the Honeycomb!" Banjo told him. "Thanks for teaching us how to do that!"

"Good, keep it, there will be many others you'll need to gather along your journey to free Tooty. There are five more Honeycombs hidden around Spiral Mountain. Now, how about your next Move? Fancy learning to swim underwater?" he asked them.

Banjo blinked. He knew how to swim on top of the water, had learned how as a much younger cub, but he'd never tried to swim _under_ the water before, disliking the thought of his head going under. "Oooh... Sounds difficult, and I'll get my fur wet!" he complained.

"C'mon, Banjo, I want to swim!" Kazooie said. "Spill the beans, Specky!"

"You already know how to swim on the surface of the water, right?" Bottles asked, and, at Banjo's nod, continued, "Good, but it's likely that you'll need to collect some things that are hidden underwater at some point in your adventure. Just point your nose down and push the water back with your fore-paws while kicking your legs to dive. Go on, give it a try!" The mole gestured toward the moat.

"Alright, Bottles..." Banjo agreed reluctantly. He headed toward the nearby bank that led into the moat, and walked down into the water, paddling on the surface when he got to a deep enough area to do so.

"Just come up before you run out of air, and you'll be fine!" Bottles warned him, still standing on the molehill.

Banjo took a deep breath and dove under the water. As he did, Kazooie's head came out of the pack and she flapped her wings through the water, making the dive deeper than Banjo alone would have managed with one stroke.

Floating under water, Banjo opened his eyes and looked around, noting that the water was clear enough for him to easily see. The moat was fairly large, giving them plenty of room to swim around, and the ground below them was covered with smooth stones, both big and small.

He heard Bottles call to them from the bank. The mole's voice sounded strange as it reached them through the barrier of water. "While underwater, kick your legs to swim slowly, and the Winged Wonder can use her wings to move quickly."

Obviously, Banjo couldn't answer Bottles, being underwater, so he just decided to put the mole's advice to good use. He kicked his legs, propelling himself and Kazooie slowly but steadily through the water, traveling through the moat back in the direction from which they had just traveled while on land. He was glad to realize that swimming underwater wasn't much more difficult than swimming on the surface was. In fact, it was rather fun, especially when Kazooie started pushing her wings through the water, which moved them forward in short but quick bursts.

He swam back to the surface to take a breath, made sure to wait for Kazooie to do the same, and then dove back under for some more practice.

The friends swam around the moat, circling Spiral Mountain as they did. Once they had nearly completed the rotation and were almost back at the bank where Bottles' molehill stood, the duo passed under the bridge that led from land to the moat-encircled Spiral Mountain, its shadow darkening the water under it.

As he swam under, Banjo caught a glimpse of something from the corner of his eye; a glittering something. He paused, holding himself in place in the water, and looked to see what was glittering. Under the bridge was an alcove set into the base of Spiral Mountain, more than big enough for him to swim into- and inside the alcove was another golden-colored hollow hexagon; the second Extra Honeycomb. Banjo swam over to it, picked it up off the rocks it rested on, and exited the alcove, swimming up and surfacing under the bridge.

Treading water, Banjo held up the Honeycomb, waiting for it to speak like the first one did. The Honeycomb didn't make a sound.

"Hello?" Banjo said to it, and received no response. He looked back at Kazooie, whose bright red feathers were slicked flat against her head and darkened with wetness. "Do you think that something's wrong with it?" he asked.

"Wrong with it?" Kazooie squawked, giving him a strange look. "It's a Honeycomb! What could be wrong with it?"

"Well, it isn't talking like the other one did," Banjo pointed out. "So, maybe it's... broken?"

"Who cares? If you're so worried about it, ask Grub Gobbler."

"Good idea," Banjo said. If Bottles had put the first Honeycomb on that stump, then he probably knew a little about talking Honeycombs- certainly he would know more about them than Banjo did.

Holding the Honeycomb in one paw, Banjo swam out from under the bridge, past where the stream fell in a short waterfall into the moat, and walked back up onto the bank, from where he'd originally entered the moat. Ignoring his soaked, heavy-feeling fur, Banjo ran up the bank and to Bottles' molehill. The mole wasn't in sight, so he must have gone back underground.

"Bottles?" Banjo called.

He popped his head out of the molehill almost instantly. "Yes?" he asked, then he noticed the Honeycomb Banjo held. "So, you found the Extra Honeycomb in the moat."

"Yes, we did, but I think it might be broken or something... It's not talking like the last one did," Banjo said, holding out the Honeycomb.

"It's not broken," Bottles told him, smiling. "Only the first Extra Honeycomb you find will talk; the others won't."

"Oh, good," Banjo said, relieved.

"Now, why don't you look for my next molehill?" Bottles prompted, before diving back into the earth.

Banjo put the second Honeycomb in the pack, next to its fellow. Kazooie shook her head, annoyed, as more of her space was taken up, but didn't protest.

Banjo returned to the path, continuing along the way. It branched off in two directions a short distance from Bottles' molehill. The right fork led ahead toward the sturdy stone bridge across the river that poured into the moat. The left one would bring them alongside the cliff wall to a part where the land jutted out farther into the lake that was formed by the valley's waterfall. The lake, in turn, flowed into the river. The jutting stretch of land led to a trio of ledges, each separated by a few feet of empty air, that had formed from the cliff wall itself, and hung over the lake.

They could cross the bridge now to the other side of the river which was likely where they would find Bottles' next molehill and his next training lesson. But Banjo thought that since they were already on this side of the river, they might as well explore it thoroughly before continuing on to the other side.

Banjo took the left path, which faded away as the dirt that made up the path became grass covered just before it reached the jutting piece of land. He walked to the edge of the cliff-like piece of land, then looked out at the gap between where he stood and the first ledge. Like most of the valley, that ledge was also covered in grass, as were the other two ledges. The gap between him and the ledge was fairly wide but Banjo was pretty confident that he could make the jump, as it didn't look so wide as for it to be impossible to leap across. Besides, if he missed, the worst that could happen was that he'd fall into the lake. And since he was already soaked from his swim in the moat, and there was a natural ramp leading out of the lake back onto land, he wasn't worried about that.

Banjo backed up a few paces and easily leapt to the first ledge. He landed safely, and mentally thanked Bottles for the jumping lessons. The distance to the next ledge was about the same so he made that jump, too.

Once he landed, he looked across at the next ledge, and smiled when he saw that, sparkling brightly in the sun, another Extra Honeycomb sat in the center of the ledge.

However, the next thing he realized was that the gap between the second and third ledges was about twice as wide as those that came before. He didn't see how he could make this jump. In between the two ledges a miniature waterfall, much smaller than the main one, tumbled down the cliff wall. Luckily, though, the ledges were long enough that there wasn't much danger of being caught by the water mid-jump and dunked in the lake.

Banjo looked back and forth between the ledges, unsure how to reach the Honeycomb, since he simply couldn't jump that far.

"Look, Kazooie, there's another Honeycomb!" Banjo said. "But look where it is, I don't know how we're going to reach it." he told her, somewhat frustrated.

Kazooie's head came out of the pack, and she glanced around, spotting the Honeycomb and the gap they had to figure out a way to cross. "Well, I guess I can't let you do all the work," she said. "I think I can get us there."

"You're going to use the Feathery Flap?" Banjo asked, not having thought of that. "Alright, let's go!"

Banjo ran toward the edge and jumped. Halfway across the gap, as he began to fall, Kazooie flapped her wings hard, extending the jump and raising their altitude just enough that they landed on the ledge, the back of Banjo's feet nearly hanging over the edge.

Taking a step forward to be safe, Banjo said, "Great job, Kazooie."

He walked over to the Extra Honeycomb and picked it up, adding it to the backpack. Now they had found three of the Honeycombs, and had three more to go.

From this ledge they faced the valley's main waterfall, much larger than the one that had just jumped past, and as he turned to head back, he noticed a dip in the stone wall behind it. It was almost obscured by the plunging water but it was definitely there, another alcove much like the one under the moat's bridge.

"Look at that, Kazooie," Banjo said, stepping as close to the waterfall as he could without falling off the ledge. Just barely visible, contrasting with the darker rock wall around it, something sat in the middle of the alcove. He couldn't tell what it was, just that, even though it also appeared to be shiny gold, it was the wrong shape to be another Honeycomb. Besides, he doubted that he would find two Honeycombs so close to each other.

The alcove was in front of and a little below them, also too far for Banjo to jump without help.

"Kazooie, do you think we can jump to that alcove though the waterfall with the Feathery Flap?" Banjo asked his partner. He hoped the waterfall wouldn't buffet them into the lake, but though the waterfall was wide and fairly fast, their jump might be strong enough to send them through it.

"Not a problem," Kazooie answered confidently.

Banjo, hoping she was right, ran toward the edge of the ledge, leaping off and toward the falling water. Kazooie's wings pumped quickly even as they passed through the waterfall, the weight of the water slowing her flaps somewhat but not halting them.

Once they landed inside the alcove, once again completely soaked but otherwise fine, he looked at the object that had attracted his attention, which he could clearly see now that they had leapt through the curtain of water.

It was a small golden statue, a little under half Banjo's height, standing on a base that was also golden. To Banjo's surprise, he saw that the statue was in the shape of a bear. More than that, a bear that looked just like he did. On its back, the statue had a backpack, just like his, though instead of blue, it was gold like the rest of it. And it also wore a pair of shorts. It had even been carved with a tuft of fur hanging down over its forehead exactly like the one Banjo had. It had its arms, which ended in fists, raised up next to its head, as though it were flexing its muscles.

"Weird, that statue looks like me!" Banjo said, taking a step closer to it.

Kazooie peered down at it, tilting her head curiously to the side. "Huh, it does. Right down to my backpack."

"Well, let's check it out."

Banjo picked up the statue, which was hard and cold, and looked at it. Then he froze, surprised, as it spoke, its small metal muzzle opening and closing as it did.

"Look out for me, I'm an Extra Life!" it exclaimed proudly. "I restore your health when your life is draining!"

"You talk too?" was all Banjo could say. Of course, like the Honeycomb, it didn't respond to his questions.

Shrugging, Banjo looked back at Kazooie. "I guess we should have expected that," she commented.

"Probably," Banjo agreed. "It says it will restore our health when our life is draining. That could really be useful." He looked back at the statue he held. "Thank you Extra Life!"

"Yeah, that's a keeper!" Kazooie said, using her wing to scoop the Extra Life from Banjo's paw and into the backpack.

With that, they leapt back through the waterfall, landing with a splash in the lake below. Banjo swam on top of the water back past the ledges hanging overhead, and then out of the lake, onto the grassy ramp. He walked up the ramp to land, stepping onto even ground right beside the jutting piece of land near the ledges.

They returned to the path once more, this time taking the fork that would lead them to the bridge and across the river.

The path he walked on now bordered on either side by tall yellow grass. Banjo reached the bridge and crossed it, stepping over the close-packed stone that formed it, then went down a slope and past a tree as the path curved gently. A short distance from there he spotted another one of Bottles' molehills off to the side of the path near the valley wall. He ran up to it.

The mole must have been waiting for them because he dug his way to the surface before Banjo could call on him.

"Sorry for taking so long, Bottles," Banjo apologized. "We found another Honeycomb, though. And we found this, too," he pulled out the golden bear statue and showed it to Bottles. "It called itself an Extra Life."

"That's a very useful find," Bottles commented.

"Will the Extra Honeycombs and the Extra Life be okay in the backpack?" Banjo asked.

Bottles chuckled. "Of course. None of the objects that talk and normally wouldn't are really alive. They're just animated with a spell."

"Oh, okay," Banjo said, though he was wondering who might have magically animated objects to be helpful to him and Kazooie. Quite clearly, it hadn't been Gruntilda, though she was the only creature around that Banjo knew practiced magic. "That's good."

Bottles nodded and then, his voice changing into the tone Banjo was beginning to think of as Bottles' 'lesson tone', said, "Hey, Banjo, I hope you're not afraid of heights..."

"I'm not!" Kazooie cut him off excitedly. "Tell me about flying, Root Muncher!" Here was what Kazooie was so eager to learn, what she, like every winged creature who had ever lived, most looked forward to- learning to fly. She figured if a mole who lived underground could teach them to jump and swim, he could teach her how to fly.

"Not yet!" Bottles said, essentially confirming that he would, eventually, teach her to fly. He turned back to Banjo, ignoring the annoyed-looking bird. "Banjo, jump onto a tree trunk, then climb up or down!"

"Okay," Banjo agreed. Climbing a tree didn't sound so hard, especially compared to back-flipping with the Flap Flip. He looked around, then he went over to the nearest tree, the one they'd just passed on their way to the molehill.

Once at its base, he scanned the rough bark for a good paw-hold. Seeing one at head-height, Banjo jumped upward, successfully gripping the bark. As he began to scale the tree, Bottles yelled over to them, "You'll find plenty of other things to climb!" Glancing back over his shoulder, still holding onto the tree, Banjo watched as the mole dove back into the dirt.

He climbed to the top of the tree, which was not terribly far above the ground, and stood on its top-most branches. This tree, like all the other trees in Spiral Mountain, was similar to a weeping fig. The top of the tree lay flat and leafy beneath his paws, the branches holding firmly without giving way to Banjo's weight because they draped over one another and made a solid surface to stand on.

Though not very high above the ground, the top of the tree still offered a good vantage point for the duo, a fact proven when Kazooie suddenly gave Banjo's head a light peck to get his attention and said, "Hey, Banjo, there's another one of those Honeycombs." She pointed with her wing to a tree back on the other side of the river, virtually identical to the tree they stood on aside from one detail; perched on top of it was the Extra Honeycomb that Kazooie had seen.

"Good eye, Kazooie! Let's go get it," Banjo said, and he jumped to the ground, landing neatly in the grass.

Banjo walked back across the bridge and went left off the path into the tall grass, and to the tree with the Honeycomb on top. The tree stood about halfway between the path and the moat. He climbed up the tree, snatched the Honeycomb from its top, and added it to their collection. Dropping back to the ground, they returned across the bridge to the other side of the river toward the molehill from which Bottles had taught them to climb. They walked along the path past the molehill and beyond it.

Right in front of them, the path forked again, with one fork continuing ahead while the other led up the angled wooden bridge that was built over the moat to Spiral Mountain.

"There's the path to the hag's lair!" Kazooie pointed out eagerly. "We must be done, let's go!" Indeed, at the top of Spiral Mountain could be seen another bridge that stretched from the mountain to the entrance of the Gruntilda's Lair.

"I don't know, Kazooie. What about that area over there? We haven't explored there, yet." Banjo pointed toward a hollow that the path that ran ahead led into and past. The ground of the hollow ahead of them was made up of rocks and dirt with no grass to be found.

"There's nothing but dirt down there, and the path to the lair is right here!" Kazooie said impatiently. "We're ready now!"

"Oh, okay," Banjo said, thinking that Kazooie could be right. Bottles had already taught them so much. And the path to the lair was right beside them; perhaps they were supposed climb it now. "Good point, Kazooie, let's go!"

They ran up the bridge to Spiral Mountain, and onto the base of the mountain itself. As the mountain's path spiraled upward, it also spiraled inward, narrowing the mountain steadily as it rose.

Banjo headed along the path, running up the mountain in a circle. Near the top, the grass beneath his feet disappeared and the path became dark green, moss covered rocks; hard but also springy to walk on.

The duo arrived at the peak of the mountain, which was completely flat. Directly across from them, set into the cliff and surrounded by shadows, was the entrance to Gruntilda's Lair, which had been carved to look like the witch's face. The open, glowing red mouth was the doorway into the lair, and above it jutted a giant stone nose. If the proportions of the statue mimicked the proportions of Grunty's face exactly, one thing was certain; the witch had a very big nose. On either side and above it were two emeralds, larger than Banjo, that glowed strangely. They made up the eyes of the strange statue. Banjo had to tilt his head way back to see that sitting on tops of the statue's head was an enormous stone witch's hat.

In short, the overall effect wasn't very pleasant to look at.

Shivering slightly and determinedly looking anywhere but at those glowing emerald eyes, Banjo started toward the bridge that led to the Lair's entrance. Before he could get near it, however, he heard Bottles' voice call out; "Hey! Where are you guys going?"

Bottles stood on a molehill in the center of the mountaintop, its brown dirt contrasting sharply with the dark green stones around it. Because his attention had been on the lair, Banjo hadn't noticed it.

He walked up to Bottles. "We're off to whack the witch and rescue Tooty!" he told the mole, determined.

Bottles shook his head, frowning. "You haven't learned all the basics, yet, she'll kick your butt!"

Kazooie scoffed and said scathingly, "She can try, the old hag!"

"The bridge is broken and I'm not fixing it until you learn all the Moves," Bottles said firmly, clearly not going to sway from that plan.

Banjo looked over at the bridge and saw, then, that Bottles was right, the bridge was certainly broken. About halfway across, the wooden planks that made up the bridge hung toward the ground, the ropes that held them together having been snapped. The gap this created was much too far to jump, even with the Feathery Flap.

Banjo sighed, disappointed. He wanted to get going on the journey to save his sister as soon as possible, but if Bottles said they weren't ready, he would have to trust the mole's judgment. They had no way to even get into the lair without Bottles' help. "C'mon, Kazooie, let's go find the ones we missed," he sighed, turning back toward the path.

"Fine," Kazooie muttered, pulling back into the backpack. As they walked back down the mountain, Banjo could hear her complaining mutinously about moles as a species in general and Bottles in particular.

Once at the bottom of the mountain, and having crossed the bridge back to land, Banjo ran to the right and continued along the path. When the path split, he turned into the grass-less, dirt covered hollow that he had pointed out to Kazooie earlier, and walked down a short slope onto the lower ground.

The ground of this hollow was rocky dirt, dusty and hard. Straight ahead was a molehill. Along the back wall of the hollow were four large brown boulders, all of which, curiously, had blinking, angry-looking green eyes on their tops. The eyes were tiny compared to the rest of the boulder, but definitely there. And when he looked closer, he thought he saw a frowning mouth under the eyes.

"That's creepy..." Banjo said.

Kazooie looked out of the backpack to see what he was talking about, and glanced at the boulders with eyes. "It's not any freakier than a talking Honeycomb or statue," she said casually, apparently getting used to weird things.

The bear silently agreed, though that didn't change the fact that all three things, talking Honeycombs, statues, and boulders with eyes, were still very creepy- or, at the very least, odd.

Banjo walked up to the molehill that was in the middle of the hollow. "Bottles?" he called. When the mole climbed out of the ground, shaking dirt from his glasses as usual, Banjo indicated the boulders and asked, "What are those things?"

"Them? They're called Quarrie," Bottles answered. "They're boulders that were given life by the witch. They appeared just today, along with a few vegetables, animated as well, that are growing under the ground right now. Gruntilda created them just after she took Tooty. She must have thought they would slow you down."

"So, they're enemies?" Banjo checked, now looking at the boulders warily.

"Yes, though Quarrie can't move, they are enemies. And that's why they're going to be targets for your first attack Move."

"What kind of attack?" Banjo asked, interested.

"My Beak Barge attack needs the help of old Chicken Legs," Bottles said.

"At least I've got some legs, short stuff!" Kazooie returned.

"Crouch down, then skid forward, shoulder first, with Kazooie's big beak leading the way for a powerful beaky barge!" Bottles explained.

Walking away from the molehill, Banjo stood in front of the Quarrie farthest to the left. It stared at him, its frown and glare unchanging. He squared his shoulders. "Ready, Kazooie?" he asked.

"Obviously," she said.

Banjo crouched down low, then, tucking his head to the side, he charged at the boulder, shoving against the ground to send himself skidding straight toward the Quarrie. Kazooie folded her wings against her sides and stuck her beak out as he did. They slammed into Quarrie, Kazooie's sharp beak given more power from Banjo's charge. Then, with a loud crack, the boulder enemy was reduced to rubble, sending fragments of rock tumbling to the ground around them.

"See, Banjo, she is useful for something!" Bottles called over, clearly speaking about Kazooie.

"I'm trying this Move out on you next, Jam Jars!" Kazooie snapped back.

Bottles, seeming not to hear the threat, returned once again to his underground tunnels.

"Let's practice a little more, Kazooie," Banjo suggested, stepping over to the second boulder creature.

"Alright!" she agreed. Kazooie was all for it. After all, the Move was a strong one. And it was also, the way Kazooie saw it, pleasantly destructive.

They went over to the next Quarrie, which was in pieces as quickly as was the boulder before it. The third one soon followed, crumbling to the ground. But it was on the fourth and final Quarrie that Banjo and Kazooie got a surprise.

As the rubble and dust fell to the ground, something golden flashed in the sun as it flew into the air, going high before it fell back to earth. Landing among the debris of the boulder was an Extra Honeycomb.

Banjo leapt back in surprise, then walked back toward the Honeycomb, surprised to see it come from inside Quarrie.

"Wow! That was unexpected," Banjo exclaimed as he bent to pick it up. He handed it to Kazooie, who shrugged a wing and dropped it in the backpack.

"We already have five of those Honeycombs in here, now," she said. "Just one more to go, this is easy."

"Yup," Banjo agreed.

Leaving the barren hollow behind, Banjo walked up the slope and back onto the main path. By now, they had almost completely circled the valley, approaching the flat-topped hill pressed against the cliff wall that was to the right of the path that led from their house. And it was to here, the only part of the valley they hadn't visited today, that they headed.

The path they were on split into yet another fork; one continuing on, and the other, the one they took, leading up a large slope to the flat-topped hill. The slope was bordered on one side by the cliff, and, on the other, by the hill it led to. The hill's sides were mostly sheer stone, meaning there was no way to climb them. The only way to reach the top was the path that led up the slope.

With the exception of the side that was against the cliff, the edges of the hill had a wooden fence going all around it in order to make sure that no-one accidentally fell off.

The ground at the top of the hill was mostly plowed dirt, circled at the very edges by grass. The area of bare, ridged dirt was large, large enough to run around in, large enough for some serious training. Close to the top of the slope was a molehill, dug near the edge of the plowed earth. Banjo walked up to it and called on Bottles again.

Bottles appeared and immediately launched into the lesson. "Banjo, it's time for you to learn the Claw Swipe attack," he told him.

Excited at the thought of learning an attack Move of his own, like the Beak Barge was Kazooie's, Banjo said, "What is it... I must know!"

Smiling at his enthusiasm, Bottles said, "Your claws are good weapons, but let me teach you to use them effectively. Simply slash at the air, one paw after the other, while taking a few steps forward to gain more momentum."

"Sounds good," Banjo said. "What can I try it out on?"

"Well, how about Bird Brain?" Bottles suggested with a sly grin.

"Just try it, Bottle Boy!" Kazooie said warningly.

"Only kidding. Let me find something with a challenge," Bottles said. Kazooie glared at him, but before she could respond, a massive carrot, much bigger than Banjo, popped out of a hole near the center of the area of furrowed dirt. It had large red-brown eyes at the top of its bright orange body. Rising above the eyes were three leaf stems, coming out of the carrot's head, "Ahh... There's Topper." Bottles said, pointing at the carrot, which was now hopping in place, looking at the three of them. "Whack him, Banjo!"

As Banjo walked up toward the carrot, which seemed completely benign, just continuing to hop, not moving from its position, Bottles said, "Right now, Topper just looks like a friendly vegetable, but I happen to know that the spells Grunty put on him haven't yet fully taken effect. I expect if you run into one of these later in your adventure, you'll find them a formidable enemy."

"We'll keep that in mind. Thanks, Bottles," Banjo said.

He stopped in front of Topper, who didn't move other than to bounce. The fact that it wasn't attacking, nor did it even look mean, made it seem wrong to attack it. But reminding himself that it was made by the witch and would likely try to attack him eventually helped him get over that.

Banjo swiped with one paw after the other, taking three steps and swiping with every step. His small but sharp claws hit the carrot, knocking Topper backward and onto the ground, while slicing its leafy top clean off.

"Wow... Nice one!" Bottles complimented from where he stood on his molehill. "Try another!"

"Hey!" Kazooie broke in, irritated. "I want some Moves!"

Bottles didn't respond to her, and, as if Bottles' words were its cue, a second Topper leapt up out of the same hole the first had emerged from. This carrot enemy also hopped in place non-threateningly, and Banjo, using the Claw Swipe again, dispatched it quickly.

"Now try my fearsome Forward Roll," Bottles said, surprising Banjo, who had gotten used to learning one Move per molehill.

"I want to learn to fly now!" Kazooie complained insistently.

"Run. Bend down, tuck your head and push off with your feet to roll, I'll see if I can find Bawl for you to practice on..." As soon as Bottles finished speaking, Bawl appeared out of the hole in the ground. Bawl, to Banjo's not very great surprise, was an onion. It had a large round body, colored a very light pinkish-brown that faded to white near the top, where it tapered, becoming much thinner as it reached the eyes. The eyes, which were a bright gold, had thin green stalks sticking up above them. Bawl, like Topper, hopped up and down. Unlike its carrot comrade, however, Bawl moved around the field as it hopped, though it seemed to pay no attention to Banjo or Kazooie.

Banjo ran toward the jumping onion and fell forward, pulling his body into a tight ball and rolling straight into Bawl, which flipped end over end as it tumbled to the ground.

"Bulls-eye!" Bottles exclaimed. "One more..."

"Stop rolling, I feel sick!" Kazooie's voice came dizzily from inside the backpack.

"Sorry, Kazooie," Banjo said as a second Bawl appeared from the the hole. "Take some deep breaths, and you'll be fine."

Banjo waited a moment for Kazooie's nausea to pass, and then used the Forward Roll on the Bawl, which fell as well. Smiling in satisfaction, Banjo rolled to his feet and turned to face Bottles.

"It's time for the buzzard to learn a trick," the mole announced.

Fully recovered now, Kazooie said, "It had better be a good one, Squinty!"

"Try out the Rat-A-Tat Rap by jumping and pulling up your legs while ducking your head. While you do that, Banjo, Kazooie can peck at the target over your head," Bottles told them. "Now, where's Collywobble?"

This time, from out of the hole appeared what looked like a cauliflower, aside from the fact that it was using the four green leaves that surrounded it- one in the front, back, and either side- in order to float above the ground. It flapped them like wings. Nestled in the middle of its leaves was its main body; a large white ball with dark red eyes perched at the top. Like the other vegetable enemies, as well as Quarrie the boulder, Collywobble was much bigger than Banjo. It bobbed around in mid-air, circling to keep Banjo in its line of sight, but never coming nearer to him.

"Come on, Kazooie!" Banjo encouraged as he ran toward the floating cauliflower and jumped, then ducked his head while pulling his legs up a little, as Bottles had told him. He felt Kazooie's head swish past his head as she pecked over one shoulder then the other; pecking at Collywobble three times before Banjo's jump began to lose height. Banjo was rather impressed with the speed of Kazooie's attack. As his paws touched the ground, so did the many fragments of the destroyed cauliflower opponent.

"Mmmm... Not bad, Feather Face!" Bottles called from the molehill.

"Give me another, Bogeyes!" Kazooie demanded, enjoying the new Move.

On cue, another Collywobble appeared out of the same hole as those that came before it. Once more, Banjo and Kazooie attacked with the Rat-A-Tat Rap, knocking the Collywobble from the air, and into pieces. As the cauliflower burst, a golden hexagon flew from inside it into the air; and the sixth and final Extra Honeycomb fell to the ground.

"That's it, you've learned all the basic Moves!" Bottles told them. "Meet me at the top of the Spiral Mountain and I'll tell you what to do next." He dove back into the molehill, sending dirt flying.

"Finally!" Kazooie exclaimed.

"Yeah, now we can save Tooty!" Banjo agreed, walking over to the Honeycomb that had fallen from the Collywobble and picking it up. As soon as he did, he felt a shiver pass through him along with a rush of energy, revitalizing him. "Kazooie, did you feel that?" he asked, shocked.

"Yeah. What was that?" Kazooie exclaimed, flapping her wings as though to work off excess energy.

"I don't know, but... I feel stronger now. Healthier, I guess." Indeed, he felt better than he ever had before, like he had more endurance that he used to. And the feeling wasn't leaving.

"So do I," Kazooie said.

"But, how did that-" Banjo blinked. "Kazooie, do you think it's the Honeycomb?"

"That thing?" Kazooie said incredulously, gesturing toward the innocuous-looking Honeycomb held in Banjo's paw.

"I think it might have done it. Remember what the first one said? Something about making us healthier and stronger when we got all six. And it happened as soon as I picked this one up."

"Well, it sure did just that!" Kazooie squawked, taking the Extra Honeycomb from Banjo and dropping it into the backpack beside the other five.

"That's going to be a big help in saving Tooty," Banjo commented happily as he walked back down the flat-topped hill.

He stopped at the bottom, stunned, as he saw that all around their peaceful valley hopped and floated Toppers, Collywobbles, and Bawls.

An onion, Bawl, hopped toward him threateningly, and Banjo skipped out of its path, surprised by its hostility. The others of its kind had not been aggressive. Bottles' guess seemed to have been proven right; the vegetable enemies were now dangerous.

He looked into the dirt-filled hollow to their right, which now held four more Quarrie boulders. New ones must have formed after the others were destroyed.

Banjo retreated back up the slope toward the flat-topped hill, and paused near the top. The Bawl didn't follow him; it hopped in place at the bottom of the slope, perhaps unable to bounce its way up.

"Kazooie, look at this!" Banjo exclaimed in dismay, doing so himself.

Kazooie poked her head out of the backpack and looked around. Then she squawked, "What are these freaky plants doing hopping around our valley?" The breegull was annoyed.

"We'll have to avoid them, but they don't move very fast. I think we can get past them to the mountain," Banjo said, about to head back down the slope and try to edge around the Bawl.

"We can do that in a minute, first we gotta take these things out!" Kazooie said.

"What? But we don't have to fight them," Banjo pointed out.

"They're in our valley!" Kazooie snapped insistently. "And they're enemies, so they gotta go!"

"But what about Tooty? We have to go and save her!"

"We will, but you wouldn't want Tooty to come back here after we defeat the ugly witch, just to get attacked by evil veggies, would you?" Kazooie asked him, tilting her head to the side.

Though it was clear Kazooie was only bringing that up to get his agreement, it still made Banjo pause. These vegetable enemies seemed very dangerous now. The Bawl was still hopping at the bottom of the slope, waiting for them to come back down so it could attack them. He definitely didn't want Tooty to have to face them.

"Alright, Kazooie, but we have to do it quickly!"

They ran back down the slope, using a Forward Roll to take out the Bawl as they did. Banjo was surprised by a flash of golden as the Bawl dropped something. He turned around to see what it was. Laying on the ground was something that looked like an Extra Honeycomb; it was a golden hexagon just like the ones they had in the backpack. But this Honeycomb was smaller than the others, and it wasn't hollow. With Kazooie looking over his shoulder, Banjo picked it up.

"Mmmm... I'm sticky, tasty Honey Energy!" it said the second he grabbed it. This time, Banjo didn't even start, having halfway expected it to speak.

"Honey Energy?" he asked. Looking at it carefully, he realized that it was coated in honey, his favorite food. In fact, the whole Honeycomb seemed to be made of honey. The outer part was rimmed bright yellow, and the center darker, it seemed to be formed with solid honey but was coated with and seemed to contain gooey, liquid honey. Banjo suddenly realized that he hadn't eaten today, having run after Tooty the moment he awoke.

"Well, if it isn't really alive..." Banjo said, hesitating. Bottles had been right so far. So Banjo brought the Honey Energy up to his muzzle and took a huge bite. The gooey honey coating was warm and sticky, just the way he liked it. The solid part was like honey candy. But when he bit into it and the warm gooey honey gushed into his mouth, he couldn't help but grin. "It's delicious!" Banjo exclaimed before eating the rest of it.

"Yeah, great," Kazooie said impatiently, "now can we get a move on?"

"Alright," Banjo agreed as, swallowing the last of the honey and licking his paws clean, he ran toward the nearest enemy.

So they circled the valley, disposing of all the enemies they saw, Toppers, Bawls, Collywobbles, and Quarries, until there were none left. Spiral Mountain now seemed clear of all the witch-created evil vegetables and boulders.

"There," Banjo said, "they're all gone now, let's go save Tooty."

"And kick the witch's butt!" Kazooie added in anticipation.

They headed toward the bridge that led to Spiral Mountain.

Once more heading up the mountain, they reached the top. Banjo glanced over at the bridge that led into the lair; it was completely fixed now. Someday, he was going to have to figure out how Bottles did all he did.

Digging his way out of the molehill on the top of Spiral Mountain, Bottles said, "Well done, guys, you're ready to tackle the witch now!"

"We sure are!" Kazooie said proudly. "Show us the way, Bottle Boy!"

"I've fixed the bridge so you can cross it and enter Gruntilda's Lair," he told them.

"Thanks, Bottles," Banjo said, grateful for all of the mole's help in the mission to rescue his sister.

Bottles nodded. "Look out for me inside..." he said. "Good luck!" He dove back into the molehill, leaving them alone on the mountaintop.

Overhead, the sun still shone brightly, having moved little from the position in the sky that it had been in when Tooty was kidnapped. The training with Bottles had taken less time that it had seemed to.

In front of them, the massive carving of Grunty's face, the entrance to the lair, loomed, the doorway that was set into the carving's gaping mouth disappearing into darkness. The lair seemed to radiate an air of menace, and of evil, chilling Banjo and shaking his resolve.

Tooty, his little sister, was in there, held captive and terrified.

Taking a deep breath, Banjo said, "Let's go, Kazooie." Filled with resolve, Banjo ran across the wooden bridge that was suspended by newly mended ropes and stepped into the statue's stone mouth. Inside the mouth were carved yellow tinted stone teeth, one of them chipped and all of them jagged. The duo passed through the shadowed doorway into Gruntilda's Lair.


	3. Grunty's Lair, Better Take Care

**Sorry for the wait for a relatively short chapter. The Mumbo's Mountain one will be up as soon as possible.**

Near the top of Grunty's Lair, in a room off to the side of the one where Dingpot sat, stood two identical machines sitting on stone podiums up to which a short ramp led. They were hollow, pod-like things made for standing in. Both instruments had a dull brown door, which was on a track that, while open like they were at the moment, held it above the machines' entrances. The doors each had a window on front that was shaped like a hexagon and tinted blue. Near the top of the machines, on either side of both and raising at a diagonal angle, were massive light blue antennae, two for each machine.

Inside one of these machines, Tooty trembled. Energy-lasers, shaped like vertical bars, glowed in the door of the machine, blocking her way and eliminating any possibility of Tooty escaping on her own. The energy-lasers flickered on and off, disappearing for a brief span every second or so. But the time they were gone was too short for Tooty to risk a dash through them. Not to mention if she did somehow get through them without being fried, the witch and her henchmen would just grab her again.

It wasn't as if she hadn't tried to escape Gruntilda several times already. She had. But none of her attempts were even remotely successful. Now she'd been forced into this machine and things were looking decidedly dire. To top it all off, the room she was in was so deep inside the immense lair that she wouldn't ever be able to find her way out if she did somehow get free. She was really in trouble and she didn't know if Banjo would ever be able to find her.

But she knew her brother would try. That knowledge was all Tooty had to cling to in her terror.

After Tooty had been put, kicking and screaming as she tried to resist, into the pod-like machine she was now trapped in, Grunty had somehow managed to fit herself into the other machine, though she was in so tightly it was hard to see how she would ever get out again. The witch was scrunched down, with her round body shoved against every side of the machine's inside and her head pressed flat by the ceiling of the machine so that she had to hold it sideways, her neck twisted awkwardly.

"This fine contraption so I'm told, will make me young and Tooty old!" Grunty said with relish shortly after she had fit herself into the machine. As Gruntilda spoke, her top minion, Klungo, lumbered through the door. Klungo was, in his own way, as hideous as was his mistress. A short goblin-like creature with green skin and with somewhat of a hunched-back, Klungo had two square teeth sticking up on either side of his mouth, which was at the end of his rounded muzzle. Instead of a nose, Klungo had two slits for nostrils on top of his muzzle. And while one of his eyes looked ordinary, the other eye, his left one, was larger than it should be and had a yellow-green sclera and no eye-lid. Klungo walked with a slow, limping, lurching step; and wore a white lab coat, which he wore open at the front.

"Let me go, you fat hag!" Tooty yelled, shaking in fear. "My brother will come and kick your butt!" There was no doubt in the young bear's mind that Banjo would indeed come to save her; she could always count on her brother. And he had Kazooie's help. All Tooty could hope was that Banjo would get there in time.

"Rescue you he will not dare, there's many dangers in my lair!" Grunty said smugly, then said to her minion, who walked up to the control panel that stood in front of and between the two machines, "Hurry Klungo, push that switch, I'm tired of being an ugly witch!" Ugly, at least, in comparison to the horrid little bear she had kidnapped- though that would not be an issue much longer.

"Yesss, Missstresss Grunty!" Klungo said sycophantically, pushing a red lever down on the control panel causing the doors of the machines to lower as the huge, blue antenna on top of the machines rose higher, straightening toward the ceiling. "Power isss on, sssoon be ready..." Klungo promised.

"Banjo..." Tooty whimpered as the door to the machine she was in slammed shut. "Help!"

Her cry echoed hollowly around the inside of the machine. There was no answer. Tooty shut her eyes in terror, horror jolting through her small body as she realized that no one would be coming to save her before the machines did their work; Banjo wasn't going to make it in time. He wasn't going to be able to rescue her. She was alone in this frightening lair with the witch who owned it and her minions; she was trapped in a machine that was powering up around her and she couldn't escape. She was utterly terrified. She let out a sob, clenching her eyes shut even tighter than they already were.

Electricity began to crackle between each machines' pair of antenna as the machines hummed and popped, powering up steadily. The transformation was about to begin. Tooty's beauty would become Gruntilda's, and Tooty's appearance would be altered with the hag's features. And while Tooty was hardly vain about her appearance, and was far too young to care about being pretty, she most certainly did not want to look like Grunty.

The humming of the machines increased, and the electricity jolting between the antenna got brighter and wider; occasionally leaping between the two machines' antennas, connecting the instruments with crackling, sizzling power. Several moments of this passed, as the machines' power reached a level high enough for it to make the transformation. Then, just as it reached that level, as Tooty trembled in fear and Grunty grinned in triumphant anticipation, there was a sudden clunk, loud enough to be heard clearly over the racket the two machines were making. As sudden as the clunk was heard, the machines' power died. The doors automatically opened as the contraptions fizzled and shut off, their loud humming thrum dropping to a low murmur before falling even lower than that. A few threads of steam rose from the machines, and then all was quiet.

There was silence for a moment more, and all three of them stood motionless, two of them in the machines, the third still at the control panel, surprised and confused by the sudden failure.

Grunty recovered first. "Klungo, you stupid chump, why am I still rather plump?" she snapped, pulling herself, with effort, out of the machine.

"Something wrong, Missstresss Grunty, Klungo not know what..." her minion responded, hitting buttons at random on the control panel in the clear hope that it would restart.

Letting out a relieved breath, Tooty cast a timid glance at the opening to her prison. The energy-lasers blocking Tooty in the machine had flickered out when the machines lost power. But Tooty still saw no way to escape, with Grunty and Klungo just feet away, and she didn't want to get lost in the witch's terrifying lair. She swallowed as her racing heart thumped, realizing slowly that she was- for the moment at least- relatively safe. Grunty couldn't do anything to her using those machines when the machines were broken. There was still time for Banjo to save her; she just really hoped her big brother was quick about it.

"Then fix it now and do it fast, or Klungo will Grunty blast!" the witch threatened, glaring with her hands on her hips.

"Yesss, Missstresss Grunty!" Klungo yelped, now alternately hitting the buttons and pulling the lever, to no effect. "Klungo will fix machine quickly!"

Grunty turned and took Tooty from the machine, picking up the little bear by the back of her shirt. Tooty thrashed against her hold as a matter of principle, even if she couldn't escape. The witch then waddled out of the tower with Tooty tucked under her arm.

"Banjo, help!" Tooty cried out, cringing away from the witch as much as she could while wedged under the hag's armpit like she was. The little bear gagged, her head spinning, and covered her nose, trying to block out Grunty's... aroma. Oh, how she hoped Banjo got here soon...

As they left the room, someone flitted out of the shadows behind the machine that had held Tooty after making sure that Klungo was too absorbed in his work to notice. It was a small, plump figure with green skin and golden hair tied up in a tight bun, with a matching diadem perched on top. Over her dark green eyes she wore very thin wire rimmed glasses. On her short, somewhat heavy body she wore a lacy, layered pink and white dress; and in her hand, she held a wand topped with a yellow star from which sparkling particles of light fell as she gave it a light flick. It was with this wand that she had cast the spell to make the machines malfunction.

"There," Brentilda Winkybunion said quietly. "That ought to stall my sister for a while. Now perhaps that sweet little bear can be saved." She'd been hoping for a while that something would happen that would stop her evil sister, and now looked like just the time, with Banjo coming to rescue Tooty. She wasn't going to pass up this opportunity, or let Grunty harm the little bear if she could help it. So, with her clear wings fluttering quickly, she flew down the tower's staircase to the lower levels below, being careful not to be seen by Grunty or her followers.

) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( (

The doorway they past through led into a short tunnel and Banjo and Kazooie soon emerged from the other side and walked into the lair itself. As they did, they were surprised by a high-pitched, mocking voice that echoed throughout the area: "There he is, the fun begins, my tricks and traps will see who wins!"

The bear and bird looked quickly around for the speaker, seeing nothing but the room they had stepped into. It was a circular room, all of it chiseled from rock, with a tunnel- a second one from the one they'd just entered through- that was about half as high as the room and much less wide. The tunnel stood off to their right. To the left was a pile of moss-topped stones that rose high above the ground, many times taller than Banjo. The ceiling was very high, and, tall though the stone pile was, it still didn't come near it. Across and to the left from where they entered was a steep slope leading upward. Directly across from them was a massive framed portrait of what could only be Gruntilda the witch. Her face looked exactly like the one she had carved into the front of her lair, except it was even uglier in color.

"That's the hag's voice!" Kazooie said, having heard Gruntilda speak when the witch had snatched Tooty. "But where is she?"

"I don't know..." Banjo said nervously, shifting from paw to paw. He recognized the voice as well, though he had only heard the witch laugh as she flew back to her lair. "But I don't think she's around here. How could we be hearing her?"

"She's a _witch_, Banjo. If she's not here, then it's probably magic," Kazooie pointed out. She looked around the entrance room. "Well, this is much bigger than our house," she said after a while. "Too bad it's so ugly, we could have moved in when we defeat the hag."

"Yup, it is," Banjo agreed. In fact, the size was making him a little uneasy. He'd never seen anything this big aside from a mountain, and he had a feeling that the whole of Gruntilda's Lair might be even bigger than one. "And this is just the first room, isn't it?"

Kazooie nodded, glancing around with a slightly impressed air, though she still managed to look rather bored.

The upwards leading ramp that lay ahead of them was too steep for Banjo to see a way that he could climb it, so he instead headed toward the tunnel off to their right.

They stepped into the tunnel as the stone floor of the circular room gave way to grass and past under stalactites made to look like fangs. Above the stalactites were pure-red lights that glowed and looked like narrowed eyes set into the stone. Banjo supposed, from what little of the lair he had seen so far, that this was Grunty's preferred style of design.

At the other end of the tunnel was a large open area. Though smaller than the last area, it was still big enough to contain the large gray mountain that seemed to grow up out of the ground across from them. As big as it was, though, the mountain was still nowhere near the size of Spiral Mountain.

At the front of the mountain, at the foot, was yet another cave that appeared to be very deep, though it wasn't very wide, and was definitely dark and mysterious. The entrance was blocked by steel bars. In contrast to the dark ceiling and the stone mountain, the walls of the open area were painted a sky blue complete with white painted clouds. The ground around the mountain was covered with green grass and dotted with red flowers that had little white spots. It was somewhat disconcerting to find an almost pleasant place in the witch's lair.

Looking to the right they could see a deep dip in the wall, much narrower than the rest of the room and rising up a slope. The entrance of the dip had a brown picket fence with an opening in the middle. Banjo headed toward it, going through the opening and into the dip, which led back a fair length. At the top was a small, round hollow, hardly big enough to be called a hollow. On the wall in front of them was a large portrait. Banjo looked at it. It seemed to be a picture of a grassy area with a mountain, a lake, and a wooden bridge stretching across the lake. Curiously, the picture was missing a large piece near the center, shaped like a jigsaw. Next he noticed something on the ground in front of them, what seemed to be a platform in the shape of a golden puzzle piece.

As soon as he noticed it, he heard Bottles' voice; "You've found a Jigsaw picture!" he exclaimed. "Stand on the Jigsaw shaped podium and I'll explain what you have to do."

Both of them jumped and looked around. There was no sign of the mole, or of a molehill. "Bottles?" Banjo called out hesitantly.

"What, you thought Gruntilda was the only one who had a little magic?" Bottles' voice replied in amusement.

"Oh, of course not!" Kazooie said sarcastically. "It makes perfect sense that moles are magical!"

Banjo agreed, though of course he wouldn't say it the way his friend had. "You have magic, Bottles?" he asked.

"Just enough to help you out a little," Bottles answered. "Now, the Jigsaw podium?"

Banjo stepped up onto the Jigsaw-shaped platform, and looked once more up at the picture in front of him.

"To enter the World shown on the picture, you must fill in the missing spaces with the Jigsaw pieces," Bottles said.

"Err... I don't think we've found any of those yet..." Banjo said, frowning.

"I think I saw one near the lair entrance," Bottles told them. "Come back when you've found it." His voice feel silent.

With a shrug, Banjo turned to go back toward the lair entrance, and Kazooie squawked, "He thinks he saw one near the lair entrance! Sheesh, what a know it all!"

"Maybe," Banjo said, heading back through the tunnel. "But it helps that he really does seem to know it all."

Kazooie scoffed, withdrawing back into the backpack.

Once more standing near the entrance, Banjo looked around. He couldn't spot a Jigsaw piece anywhere on the floor of the cave, so he decided to check on the tall pile of moss-topped stones, which looked almost like pillars.

He quickly jumped up them, landing on the forth and highest stone in the pile. Like the stones before it, this one had a flat top. But resting in the middle of this one was a gleaming golden Jigsaw piece that looked like a smaller version of the Jigsaw podium. "Found it, Kazooie!" Banjo told the breegull, and picked up the yellow puzzle piece, waiting expectantly for it to say something.

"Hey... It's me, Mr. Jiggy!" it said squeakily. "Now go and find a picture with a piece missing."

Feeling a sudden burst of enthusiasm at finally getting somewhere in the quest, Banjo held the Jiggy above his head and bounced on his feet for a moment in a little dance.

Kazooie poked her head out of the backpack, gave Banjo a strange look, and then grabbed the Jiggy in her beak, yanking it from Banjo's hand. She withdrew into the pack to deposit it, and then stuck her head back out. "What in the world was that?" she asked Banjo incredulously, obviously referring to his dance.

"Well, it just felt like the thing to do," Banjo said, shrugging. He started to hop back down the rock pile.

"Well, if you must. But keep it simple, will ya?" Kazooie told him.

The duo returned through the tunnel to the room with the mountain inside, and then up the slope to the picture again. Banjo stepped onto the Jigsaw podium.

"We've got the first Jigsaw piece, Goggle Boy!" Kazooie called.

"Great!" Bottles' disembodied voice replied. "To fill in the missing spaces on a picture, hold the Jigsaw up in front of you. If you don't want to use any Jigsaw pieces, just leave the podium."

Getting the Jiggy from his backpack, Banjo held it up and stared at the picture's missing space. Kazooie was doing the same. He wondered how the Jiggy was going to fill in the picture without being physically placed there, but had enough faith in Bottles by now to know it would.

Sure enough, the Jiggy gave off a bright yellow glow, flaring for a moment before the glow faded, and, as it did, so did the Jiggy. It turned transparent and disappeared from his paws, and to Banjo's further astonishment, a transparent Jiggy appeared in the empty spot in the painting. It quickly turned solid and changed color, blending in with the browns and grays of the mountain in the picture.

The mountain in the room behind them was just visible from where they stood in front of the picture, and at the sound of creaking hinges, Banjo turned to look at it.

"That's it!" Bottles exclaimed as the barred doorway at the foot of the mountain swung inward and open. "The picture's complete and the door to Mumbo's Mountain is open!" Above the newly opened entrance, a large rectangular sign appeared with white lettering on a brown background that said 'Mumbo's Mountain'.

Banjo and Kazooie ran down the slope toward the mountain. As they did, Gruntilda's voice said, "That was such an easy fit, the others may just test your wit!" The witch's shrill laughter rang through the lair.

"She keeps rhyming..." Banjo commented, automatically looking around for Grunty, though he knew she wasn't in the room.

"I noticed!" Kazooie groaned. "The Old Bag sounds like she's stuck in a bad children's book!"

Grunty's voice cut in before Banjo could respond; "Old Bag, you say, you feathered cretin? Breegull soup I'll soon be eatin'!"

"Sensitive, isn't she?" Kazooie said to Banjo as the pair passed through the gate into Mumbo's Mountain.


	4. The Mundo Of Mumbo Jumbo Part 1

**First of all, I am truly sorry for the ridiculously long wait for this chapter. I hope the chapter is worth the wait. When I realized just how long this chapter was going to be, word-count-wise, I decided I'd better break it in half. Otherwise it would have taken much longer to post and way too long to read. I love long chapters, but it still seemed like if I didn't break it in half, it would be too much. I'll try to get the second half of Mumbo's Mountain up quickly. I can promise that the wait will be a lot shorter than it was for this one. Please leave a review if you have the time and inclination and want to make my day.**

When Banjo stepped through the entrance way in the mountain, passing under the sign that read 'Mumbo's Mountain', for a moment, he couldn't see anything. The cave he'd entered was pitch-black, dark enough that it was impossible to see what was around him. Then, there was a sudden flair of light that sparkled around Banjo, who let out a yelp of surprise at the unexpected, blinding illumination. He realized with shock that his body was glowing as well, sparkling with brilliant light that seemed to come not only from around him, but also from his body itself. The frightened bear tried to stagger backward and run out of the cave, but he was frozen in place. Banjo just had time to see his body start to turn transparent before the light got so bright, his whole world went shining white.

When his vision cleared, Banjo's jaw dropped. He was no longer standing in a cave of any shape or form. Shocked, he wondered if the light had somehow teleported him to where he now stood. Normally, he might think that insane, but with the day he'd been having, Banjo was more or less willing to believe anything was possible. That didn't mean he wasn't surprised.

"Kazooie, look at this!" he gasped.

"What is it now?" she asked, sticking her head out of the pack. "Oh."

'_Oh_' pretty much summed it up, Banjo thought. Far from standing in a cave, which is what Banjo would have expected since he had walked through a door at the foot of a mountain, the bear and bird were in an area that was clearly outside, the sky overhead a bright, cloudless blue. They stood in a valley of sorts, but it definitely wasn't Spiral Mountain's valley. They were on a slightly raised, flat-topped hill covered mostly with green grass. Behind and to the right of them was a sheer, un-climbable stone cliff that, looking around, Banjo could see bordered most of the valley they were in.

Ahead of them was another mountain, sloping high up above them. This mountain was an odd one in that it was split into three distinct colors, each of which also split it into three distinct thirds. The part of the mountain that was in front of them was mottled green and brown, while the part a little to the left of it, separated by a path that led to the top of the mountain, was a bare brownish-gray stone. The gray stone part of the mountain had a large, fairly noticeable hollow near the center of it. Under that part of the mountain he could see a small lake, shaped like a rectangle and spanned by a wooden bridge. The lake water stretched from the bare stone part of the mountain across to the cliff wall that bordered the area. The lake separated the area of land they were on from another, similar looking area he could see across the bridge. The last section of the oddly-colored mountain, a little more to the left of the gray stone part of it, sloped up from the area across the bridge, and was bare dirt. Both the mottled-green part of the mountain and the bare dirt part had several large ledges scattered along its sloped surface, jutting out into open air.

Banjo couldn't see much of what was on top of the mountain aside from a massive structure that was an immediate attention-grabber; an odd formation shaped like a pillar rose out of the center of the mountain's top. It was a mixture of green and dusty yellow-brown. That was all he could see of it from this vantage point.

The hill, on which Banjo and Kazooie stood, the one where they'd appeared moments before, went down in a tiled formation to the ground. There, he could see a short grassy field with the same red flowers with white spots that he had seen back in Gruntilda's Lair, a tree that stood in the field almost directly ahead of them, and another tree a bit to the left, close to the lake. A tall, rectangular piece of land, so perfect it had to have been intentionally carved that way, sprang from the ground beside the farthest-right tree, the tree that was in front of them. Banjo could see something on top of the raised patch of land, but could only tell that it was light purple and white and seemed to be moving. The field spanned the distance between Banjo and the mottled-green part of the mountain.

Banjo took a step backward in alarm when he saw what was walking in the field. Three odd purple creatures with long rounded muzzles, large pointed ears that had a tuft of red-orange feathers sticking up between them, and loin cloths made of what appeared to be orange grasses were wandering around there. The creatures also had decidedly hostile looking eyes, but to Banjo's relief, they had not yet noticed him. Their overall appearance reminded Banjo of the stories he had heard as a cub about goblins, and he gulped as he remembered just what the goblins in those stories were like.

In short, aside from the purple creatures, which Banjo guessed were not very friendly, the area they were in looked about as different from Gruntilda's Lair as it could get. The honey bear recognized that it was indeed the area he had seen in the Jigsaw picture- Mumbo's Mountain.

"There are three new moves to learn in this World," Bottles' voice, once again issuing from thin-air, informed them before Banjo could look around much more. "Find my molehills and I'll explain."

"Bottles, wait!" Banjo exclaimed. "What is this place? We were just in the lair, and now we're here…" All Banjo knew was that the name of the place was Mumbo's Mountain; beyond that, he was feeling completely confused.

"This is a World," Bottles explained. "You were sent here when you passed through the doorway. A World is a place that has been attached to Gruntilda's Lair. Unfortunately, using her magical spells, the witch has taken these Worlds for her own and filled them with her wicked minions. They are no longer the peaceful, fun places they once were, now that they're magically bound to her lair. There are still good creatures living in them, but far more of Gruntilda's minions. There are nine Worlds throughout the lair, each very different from the last, and you'll need to visit them all."

"And this one is named Mumbo's Mountain?" Banjo asked, frowning at what Gruntilda had done to Worlds that had been peaceful before.

"Yes, it is."

"Why do we need to go to all of the Worlds?"

"Because there are items here that you'll need to find to progress through the lair. Without them you wouldn't get very far," Bottles explained patiently.

"What kind of items?" Banjo asked another question.

"Two of the kinds you've already found; the Jigsaw piece and the Extra Honeycombs. The other items… you'll have to see for yourself. Just look for anything unusual."

"Define 'unusual'," Kazooie snapped. In her opinion, everything they had seen recently fell under the classification downright weird.

"You'll know them when you see them," Bottles answered.

"There's more Jiggies to find?" Banjo asked.

"Yes, many of them," Bottles said. "You used a Jigsaw piece to open this world, by putting it into the Mumbo's Mountain picture. Each of the Worlds has a picture with missing pieces that need to be filled with Jigsaws to open that World, so you'll definitely need to find more."

"Hey, Specky!" Kazooie called. "How do you know all this?"

"The same way I knows the Moves I taught you two," Bottles replied, unperturbed by Kazooie's suspicious tone. "It's easy to learn things when you're a mole because nobody knows when you're listening. Of course, I have other ways as well, but those are trade-secrets."

Banjo could almost see the grin Bottles must be wearing right about now.

Seeing Kazooie about to snap at Bottles again, Banjo intervened before she could. "So we have to find some items in this World?" he asked.

"That's right. That thing you're standing on is an Exit Pad, so when you're done, come back to be teleported back to the lair."

"Exit Pad?" Banjo looked down and blinked. Having been focused on appearance of the area around them, Banjo hadn't noticed that he was standing, not on grass, but on a metal pad. It was circular and gray, but that wasn't the surprising part. The Exit Pad had a picture of Banjo and Kazooie's faces on it, gray steel like the rest of the pad. Their pictures showed their heads side by side, facing opposite directions, with open-mouthed smiles.

"Hey, that's us!" Banjo exclaimed, shocked.

Bottles said, "I placed an Exit Pad at the start of each World, so you could get in and out. You should have seen the witch when she found one of them in a later World, just after I put it down. She threw a fit, ran over and started stomping on it, and then got transported back to her lair. When she got back to the World, she ran right back to it and started stomping it again, and of course it whisked her away again. So now she doesn't go near them."

Banjo couldn't help but laugh at that. Kazooie found the mental image just as funny, but since it was Bottles who had told the story, she wasn't about to laugh at it. That would seem like admitting that the mole wasn't so bad, and Kazooie was _not_ about to do that.

Banjo was really starting to wonder how Bottles could do all this, and do it all so quickly, but he figured if Bottles hadn't told them yet, he wouldn't now. So Banjo just said, "Thanks, Bottles, this'll help for sure."

"Good luck!" Bottles said, and his voice went silent.

"How do we know that mole's on our side?" Kazooie asked Banjo irritably as he stepped off of the Exit Pad and walked down from the tiled hill into the field below it.

"Of course he is," Banjo said, surprised. "He's helped us a lot so far."

"Still…" Kazooie complained. "He won't explain how he knows all that stuff. 'Trade-secrets', he says. I'd like to know how he knows so much about the hag's lair."

"Err, Kazooie," Banjo ventured apologetically, "maybe you just don't like him?"

"There's that, too," Kazooie muttered, but Banjo could tell she didn't actually suspect Bottles of anything.

Returning his attention to the field, Banjo remembered the three goblin-like purple enemies, and tried to keep an eye on all three of them at once. He guessed that these things were some of Gruntilda's minions that Bottles had mentioned. One of the hideous trio was a good distance away, wandering around near the lake to their left, so they probably didn't need to worry much about that one at the moment, to Banjo's relief- though the other two might still be a problem.

He'd had only taken a few steps when one of the goblins, just ahead of him, saw them. "Nya-ha-ha!" it laughed and ran toward Banjo, its arms raised in the air above its head.

Banjo yelped, partly from surprise, and partly because that creepy laugh was more than a little unsettling.

It ran up close to him, about to attack. Before it could touch him, Banjo went into a Forward Roll, the world spinning around him as he plowed into the enemy. As he rolled to his feet, he saw the enemy go flying in a backwards tumble until it landed on its back, defeated. But to Banjo's surprise, as it did, a piece of Honey Energy went flying into the air, glinting golden, and then back to the ground, the enemy having dropped it.

He wondered for a moment why the enemies he had encountered lately had been carrying Honey Energy. Once the vegetable enemies had become violent, they had all carried them, and apparently, this goblin enemy did as well.

Mentally shrugging the question away as one of the mysteries of the day that he likely wasn't going to get an answer for, Banjo headed over to the Honey Energy piece. He was just about to pick up the Honey Energy, planning to eat it, because the honey really was delicious, when he heard a gleeful "Nya-ha-ha!" from just behind him.

He turned quickly to see one of the remaining two goblin enemies running at him, its eyes wide and wild. He only had time to yelp in fear before it slammed into him.

Banjo let out a yell, hurt, as he flew backward. He just managed to land on his paws, stumbling backward as he landed but not falling- but the enemy was running at him once more. Just as it was about to hit him again, Banjo jumped backward, trying to avoid it. The instant his paws left the ground, Kazooie's head came out of the backpack. Knowing what she was about to do, he ducked his head out of the way as Kazooie's beak whooshed past his ears three times, striking the goblin with a powerful Rat-A-Tat Rap and knocking it unconscious, like the goblin before it. And just like the goblin before it, this one dropped a Honey Energy piece.

"Ha! That didn't take much!" the breegull said in satisfaction as Banjo's paws landed on the ground once more.

"Thanks, Kazooie," Banjo said gratefully, glad for her help. He took a step forward, but the movement reminded him of the injury the goblin had inflicted when it hit, and he stopped walking with a wince. He didn't think it had caused too much damage, but he was sure he had a bruise, and it was pretty painful. "Ow... Kazooie, did you get hurt?" he asked, realizing the creature's attack might have harmed her, too. The goblin had run into his front, and Kazooie was in her backpack on his back, and while that meant she was protected from the brunt of the blow, she was still likely tossed around quite a bit.

"Not enough to worry about," she responded dismissively.

"Alright," Banjo said, though he was still worried. Banjo knew Kazooie well, and knew that, as proud as she was, when she admits to being hurt, it would almost certainly be worse than she said it was. He went over and picked up the most recently dropped Honey Energy, deciding that injured or not, he still wanted to eat it.

He bit through the hard, candy-like surface to the liquid honey below and swallowed it. When he did, he was startled to feel the pain from the injury instantaneously and almost completely vanish.

"Huh?" he said aloud. Then, thinking that it couldn't possibly have healed him but wanting to test it, Banjo took another bite of the half-eaten Honeycomb. He was astonished to feel the rest of the pain disappear from his body, so it was as though he hadn't even been injured, and he knew there was no denying that the Honey Energy had healed him.

"Kazooie, this just healed me!" Banjo exclaimed. "Try some!"

"What? Are you kidding?" the red-crested breegull squawked in disbelief. "What d'ya mean it healed you? And I'm not eating that!"

"Well, I ate some of this, and I'm not hurt anymore…" Banjo explained, still shocked about that fact. "And, why not?"

"Do I look like a delusional bear to you?"

"What does delusional mean?" Banjo asked, confused.

"Look it up," Kazooie grumbled.

"The Honey Energy really did heal me, Kazooie, and you got hurt, so I think maybe you should have some," Banjo persisted.

Kazooie ruffled her wings in irritation. "I said I didn't get hurt enough to worry about, and birds don't eat honey!"

"Err, but-" Banjo started to say, having seen a few different kinds of birds eat honey every now and then, but Kazooie cut him off before he could mention that.

"Fine, _I_ don't eat honey!"

Banjo winced at her tone, and tried not to show he was hurt. But Kazooie must have noticed because she sighed. "Fine, give me a piece; I'll give it a try," she said with resignation.

"Thanks, Kazooie!" Banjo exclaimed happily. He passed the remaining bit of Honey Energy back to the breegull, who took it in her wing.

"I could do without the sticky part," she complained, and then tossed the little chuck of solid honey into her beak. Her green eyes went wide as she swallowed it. "Wow, that's really good. And you weren't kidding, I feel great!"

"So it healed you?" Banjo asked hopefully.

"I guess it did," Kazooie admitted. "Now let's get going!"

"Right!"

If the Honey Energy healed you when you ate it, then Banjo supposed that was why enemies seemed to carry them. They probably planned to eat them and heal themselves before they were defeated, but had so far been defeated too quickly to manage to.

Unable to resist taking a moment for it, Banjo looked around for the Honey Energy that had fallen from the first goblin enemy he had defeated. He spotted it sparkling in the grass where it had fallen, and ran over. Banjo picked it up and happily ate the tasty treat.

"I thought we were going to get going?" Kazooie reminded him impatiently.

Banjo nodded. "Alright, let's go."

The honey bear looked around, deciding where to head next. Seeing the rectangular platform that rose above the ground next to the nearby tree, Banjo remembered that, when he'd been standing on the Exit Pad, he'd noticed something moving on it. Now seemed as good a time as any to investigate it, so he ran toward the structure.

"Help!" Banjo started at the high-pitched voice that was definitely coming from on top of the platform. "Help!" it called again.

Stopping at the base of the structure, Banjo looked up toward the top of it; whatever might be on top of it was out of his sight from where he stood, but if it needed help, and it certainly sounded like it did, then Banjo decided he'd better check it out.

Banjo crouched with his paws over his head, and then, with Kazooie's help, he used the Flap Flip to backflip up onto the platform, which was topped with grass. Banjo turned around to face the middle of the platform and saw what had been calling for help.

The majority of its small body was light purple, almost pink. Its face was shaped roughly like a triangle, with wide cheeks tapering to the narrower top of its head, which was flat with two long, thin pointed ears. It had a beak-like muzzle that sloped down into a point, and its close-set eyes were blue and large, taking up almost a third of its face. Its body also looked like a triangle, the bottom of its torso being much wider than its neck, and went inward abruptly over its legs, making its torso look like a flaring dress. It was striped with a white band from its neck to the bottom of its torso. It also had a very short tail. Its arms and legs looked normal enough, and were covered in light purple fur like most of the rest of it.

The thing put its arms up and waved its entire body back and forth, calling "Help!" again.

"What's wrong?" Banjo asked, staring at the creature in confusion.

He looked directly around it as well, wondering what was troubling it. Nothing seemed to be wrong that he could see, and the Jinjo didn't respond to his question except to yell, "Help!" yet again.

Banjo frowned. "I don't get it," he said. "What's wrong with it?"

On cue, Bottles spoke, "This creature is trapped, bound by magic. To free it, just pick it up- this will break the magical bonds that hold it in place. "

"Okay…" Banjo said slowly, wondering why that would break the magical bonds, but didn't ask. He stepped toward the small creature, whose head came up to his chin.

It let out a gleeful cry of "_Jinjo!_" when he picked it up, and flew out of his hands and into the air. Banjo's jaw dropped as the seeming flightless creature took to the air and soared around them, its arms at its sides, its beak pointing ahead and up, in a rapidly rising spiral. It left a trail of purple-colored sparks in its wake. As it flew higher, it called out, "Yippee, you saved me! Gruntilda has imprisoned five of us Jinjos on each World. Free us all to get a Jiggy!" It flew higher in its dizzying spiral until it disappeared into the sky.

"A Jinjo?" Banjo said. He'd never heard of Jinjos before. Well, if Grunty had imprisoned them as the Jinjo had said, then they could only be friends, he reasoned, since Grunty was anything but. So he would definitely make sure to free any Jinjos they found.

"That thing can_ fly_?" Kazooie squawked loudly, startling him.

"Err, I guess it can…" Banjo said, looking upward at where it had vanished.

"Naturally! I can't fly, but the wingless, featherless, freaky thing can!"

Banjo thought calling it freaky was a little mean, but decided to let it go. "I'm sure Bottles will teach you to fly soon, Kazooie." Banjo remembered how when Kazooie had told Bottles to teach her to fly, he had said 'Not yet,' which meant he would eventually, didn't it?

"Hmph," Kazooie huffed. "He'd better." Then she perked up slightly. "At least we'll get a Jiggy for saving these Jinjo things," she added.

"Yep," Banjo agreed. He also thought it would be nice to save the Jinjos even if they didn't get a Jiggy for it, but if he argued with everything Kazooie said that he didn't completely agree with, they'd never get anywhere.

He was just about to leap down from the rectangular platform the way he'd jumped onto it, when he saw something light gray just behind it, highly noticeable against the grass.

"Look, Kazooie," he said, jumping down behind the platform and turning to face the object he'd noticed. Banjo froze when he realized it was a skull. It was a large skull, with an almost round head and much thinner jaw whose teeth were together in a grin. It had small nose indents in between its eyes, which, Banjo was surprised to see, were not empty eye sockets- they had eyes in them, which were also quite large with golden-yellow irises around the pupils. Oddly, there were little sparkles of light appearing and disappearing along the skull, perhaps reflections of the sunlight.

Kazooie poked her head out of the backpack, and then stared at the skull, going as silent as Banjo was. Several long seconds ticked by as they stared at it, neither the bear nor the bird moving an inch.

"You don't think we have to pick that up?" Kazooie asked after a moment.

"Bottles did say to look for anything unusual," Banjo said.

"Well, that's definitely unusual." The breegull's tone was flat.

"I guess I'd better pick it up…" Banjo said reluctantly.

He stepped closer to the skull, took a deep breath, and grabbed it. The surface was cold under his paws, and felt oddly smooth- was this how bone was supposed to feel? His skin crawling, he lifted it up and looked at it, expecting it to talk.

"Me Mumbo's Token, used for Mumbo magic," the skull said, its little jaw moving up and down, which freaked Banjo out a little more than he already was.

"This isn't a real skull, is it?" Banjo asked Kazooie nervously.

"It said it's a Token," Kazooie pointed out, now much more relaxed. She lightly pecked the Token's surface a few times, then paused a moment and did the same to the back of Banjo's head, apparently comparing the two. "Nope, not a real skull," she decided over Banjo's protest.

"Good," Banjo said, rubbing his head with a paw. He put the Token in the backpack, wondering what a Mumbo was and why both the Token and this World were named after it.

He headed toward the lake with the bridge, deciding to cross and search on the other side. He couldn't see anything else on this side of the lake aside from the base of the mountain and the third goblin, the one they hadn't yet defeated.

The remaining goblin was near the lake, and he took it out with a Forward Roll before it could finish its creepy laugh. Then he turned toward the bridge, which was a simple wooden one with diamond-shaped holes. But what caught his attention were the golden objects lining the bridge. He'd seen things shaped just like them before when he'd been learning to play his instrument, the banjo. He'd thought that it might be fun to learn how to play an instrument with the same name as his own, and he'd been right, but it had required a lot of practicing to learn how to play which notes for which song. And because of his studies, he recognized the shape of the objects on the bridge right away. They looked exactly like large, golden musical notes.

Banjo picked up the first one which was placed at the beginning of the bridge, noticing that it felt like it was made of metal. As he picked it up, it let out a musical tone and said, "I'm a Note, one of a hundred on each World. Collect us to open the Note Doors!"

"Note Door? What's a Note Door?" Banjo asked the Note. When it didn't reply, he shrugged. "I guess we'll find out." He put the Note in the backpack with Kazooie.

He walked along the bridge and over the bright blue lake, collecting the remaining Notes to be found there, which made a total of seven. He was just about to step off of the bridge onto the unexplored area, which he could see was larger than the one on the side of the bridge they came from, when he heard a sharp whistle coming from behind and to the right of him.

Surprised, Banjo turned to look. About halfway between the bridge and the side of the gray section of the mountain that sloped into the lake, was a pillar-like platform rising from the water. It was circular, and, like most of the rest of the area that he had seen, was covered with grass. More importantly, standing on the pillar-platform was a Jinjo. It must have whistled in an attempt to get his attention. And now that it had his attention, it, like the Jinjo before it, waved its arms in the air and called, "Help!"

Banjo backtracked, stopping in the center of the bridge to look across at the Jinjo. Its body shape was exactly the same as the first Jinjo, but its coloring was completely different. While the first Jinjo had been purple with a white chest and stomach, this one was primarily a dark blue, and its front was instead a bold, fiery orange. Even so, it was unmistakably a Jinjo, so Banjo said, "A little help, Kazooie?" and sprang toward the pillar. The distance between the bridge and the pillar was too far for the bear to make with just his jump, but Kazooie extended it with the Feathery Flap, beating her wings until they landed next to the Jinjo.

He picked it up and it instantly flew out of his hands, calling, "_Jinjo!" _just as happily as the first one had. It spiraled around them and upwards, leaving a trail of blue sparkles as it headed into the sky. Banjo wondered where the Jinjo was going.

He was about to jump back over to the bridge when he saw something golden under the lake. When he looked more closely, he could see that there were two hollows at the foot of the mountain, submerged at the bottom of the lake.

Banjo jumped down into the lake and dove under the water. Kazooie's wings sent them gliding to near the bottom of the lake in one stroke. Banjo kicked his way over toward the farthest right hollow and saw three golden Notes sitting inside of it. He swam into it and scooped them up, depositing them in the backpack. Then he swam back out and toward the other hollow, which also had three Musical Notes in it. He now had thirteen Notes.

Banjo headed back out of the hollow and to the lake's surface, shaking his head to clear the water from his eyes and ears. Then, kicking slightly to stay floating, he looked around for a way to exit the lake. The bank was mostly too high to jump to land, but there were parts of the bank which sloped into the lake enough for him to walk out. Banjo got out of the lake on the side of the bridge he hadn't yet explored, ran up the slope and then stepped into the grass.

This area on this side of the bridge was similar to the last side in that the ground was grassy and dotted with flowers. Ahead and to the right of them was a low, circular platform like a larger version of the pillar in the lake, though this one was low enough to easily jump on top of. He could see something in the center of the platform, an object that was bouncing up and down without leaving the ground. To his utter confusion, the bouncing object looked like a beehive.

To their right, past the platform, the gray section of the mountain ended and became plain dirt. Just in between the two sections of the mountain, he could see a path made out of wooden planks, leading up to the top of the mountain. He'd be sure to go up there later, once he'd checked out the area down here.

Just as Banjo started toward the circular platform, intending to see what the bouncing beehive like thing was, he heard a loud snort from his right, and what sounded like pounding hooves. Startled, Banjo looked toward the noise. A massive, thick-bodied bull was charging at them, his head lowered and his horns, which were far too large for Banjo's comfort, aimed straight at the bear and his bird friend.

Banjo dodged to the side just in time, leaping from where he stood by the lake and landing on the bridge. The bull stopped at the beginning of the bridge, maybe unable to walk on it, either because of his weight or because he probably wouldn't be able to balance on the bridge with his hooves. For whatever reason and to both Banjo and Kazooie's relief, the bull didn't try to follow them.

Letting out his breath in a sigh, Banjo got a closer look at the bull. His fur was a grayish-blue, his eyes small and beady, and in his large snort was an even larger golden-colored ring. His horns looked too big for his head and were white, as was the fur on the bottom of his legs, just above his hooves. The bull turned away from the bridge with a deep moo, losing interest in the duo, and lowered his head to graze.

Banjo gulped, and knowing he had to get past it, stepped off of the bridge and back onto land. He tried to run for the circular platform again, but the bull caught sight of him and turned. He pawed the earth with a snort and charged again, giving Banjo no time to get out of the way. So they'd have to attack.

He jumped into the air, and Kazooie, guessing the plan, used the Rat-A-Tat Rap, striking the bull hard on his head between his horns with her beak before it could hit them.

Banjo yelped in shock when the attack only knocked the bull backward and didn't defeat him like all the enemies before him. The bull regained his feet and was soon charging at the duo again, letting out a loud snort as he did.

The bear jumped out of the way of the bull's horns and onto the edge of the circular platform. He didn't pay much attention to the beehive he'd noticed earlier, which he could see bouncing up and down from the corner of his eye, instead preferring to keep watch on the bull. He seemed to have lost interest in them quickly again, as soon as they were out of his line of sight, in fact. He trotted a short distance away from the platform Banjo had escaped onto and lowered his head to the grass.

"That Rat-A-Tat Rap should have taken it out!" Kazooie said, sounding almost offended that it didn't. Banjo guessed she was already proud of her recently learned Move.

"Sorry, Feathers," Bottles voice said, coming from nowhere again, "But it's going to take more than that against Bigbutt the bull. I'd say two Rat-A-Tat Raps would be needed, but he wouldn't stay down for long. You should probably just avoid him."

"The bull's name is Bigbutt?" Banjo asked in disbelief. Alright, then, maybe even with what happened today, Banjo still wasn't the one with the biggest problems. The poor bull had it worse; no wonder he had such a bad temper.

"I can see where he got his name," Kazooie commented.

"That's not very nice, Kazooie!" Banjo frowned.

Shaking his head and turning away from the unfortunately named bull, Banjo looked fully at the bouncing beehive for the first time. Shaped like an upright rectangle, it seemed to be made of mostly white wood that was layered into four sections, with a pale brown top that was shaped like a roof. It stood on four rectangular wooden legs, also a pale brown, which remained against the ground as it bounced, while the layers that made up the rest of its body rose and fell with the bouncing.

Banjo was sure it was a beehive, though he was glad that there seemed to be no sign of bees. For one thing, he could smell honey inside of it. And for another, he'd seem similar looking beehives before, though the ones he'd seen had been real ones made by bees whereas this one was wooden, and much larger than the real ones he'd seen. This wooden beehive's top rose above his head. Unfortunately, they hadn't been any real _or _manufactured beehives in Spiral Mountain that Banjo had found, which was too bad, since he really did love honey.

This beehive, unlike the real beehives he'd seen before, had eyes placed on the top of its body, sticking up from its roof. The eyes, which were green, were fixed on Banjo and Kazooie and they bounced up and down as the rest of the beehive bounced. Banjo stepped forward, closer to the beehive, the smell of honey too strong and tasty to resist.

"Go away!" the beehive said sharply. Its voice had a strange buzzing quality to it. "Leave my Honeycombs alone!"

Banjo watched it bob up and down for a moment, the fact that it both talked and had eyes making it difficult for him to imagine breaking it open like he usually did with real beehives when he could find them.

Then again, there was no way that a beehive was actually alive, any more than the other talking items were, especially since this one was made out of wood. And the scent of honey was very strong, so Banjo stepped toward it again until he was just in front of it.

"Sorry, Mr. Beehive," Banjo couldn't help saying, before whacking it with his Claw Swipe attack. The claws on his paws broke through the white-colored wood and sent shards of it flying in every direction. The main part of the beehive collapsed as whatever held up the layers fell apart, causing it to fall straight down against the ground, completely flat. As it did, and like Banjo had thought it might because of the smell of honey, Honeycombs that had been inside came flying out. But to Banjo's surprise and delight, there were three Honeycombs instead of the single one he'd expected.

"Wow, there are three Honeycombs!" Banjo rejoiced, running around the platform and scooping them all up. "Want some, Kazooie?"

Kazooie shrugged her wings. "Why not?" she said, and took one.

Banjo ate the other one, and once they'd both finished their Honeycombs, he looked at the third. "Hmm... If Honeycombs heal us, maybe we should save one to eat later in case we get hurt," he suggested.

"Do you know how sticky that will make my backpack?" Kazooie groaned, and then shook her head.

"Sorry, Kazooie," Banjo said. "I still think it's safest to keep it with us."

"Well, it's getting filled with a bunch of other strange stuff, so just put it in," Kazooie sighed. "But if the backpack gets covered in honey, _you're_ cleaning it." From the look she gave Banjo, that last part wasn't debatable.

Banjo nodded in agreement and put the Honeycomb in the pack. Immediately, the piece of Honey Energy sparkled with light, glowing golden from the inside out, and he and Kazooie gaped as it vanished from sight, turning transparent and disappearing completely within a moment. The Honeycomb that Banjo had put in the backpack was now nowhere to be seen. It was as if it had vanished from existence.

"Huh, that was weird," Kazooie understated.

"What made it disappear?" Banjo wondered.

"It happened when you tried to put it in my backpack," Kazooie pointed out. "Maybe we can't store it?"

"Maybe…" Banjo agreed. A little confused, though, he asked, "But if we can store the other items, why not a Honeycomb?"

Bottles' voice spoke. "Well, Bird Brain," he said, obviously addressing Kazooie, "you were right, you can't store Honeycombs. You might be smarter than you look." Kazooie opened her beak to retort, but Bottles continued before she could. "The reason you can't store Honeycombs, Banjo, is because this item is meant to be eaten when it's found, and the spells that cause it to heal you also prevent you from storing it. You'll just have to look for Honeycombs when you're injured."

"That could be bad," Banjo said, worried. "What if we get hurt and can't find one?"

"Please!" Kazooie scoffed. "We won't get hurt."

"We got hurt once," the honey bear pointed out.

Kazooie caught onto the implied 'if it happened once then it could happen again,' and, somewhat impatiently, insisted, "That was a fluke, Banjo, we're not gonna get hurt again! We don't need the Honeycomb!"

"I hope you're right," Banjo replied uncertainly. He wasn't as sure of their invincibility as Kazooie was. After all, they didn't know what dangers they would be facing later in Gruntilda's Lair.

"When am I not?" Kazooie said cockily.

Banjo decided not to answer that. He jumped down off the side of the platform opposite the bridge, ready to continue their exploration.

Ahead of them the ground sloped down into a valley, which looked to be bordered on its right side by the dirt part of the mountain and on its left side and behind it by the valley's sheer wall.

Directly ahead of them was a large tree, palm tree-like in appearance, though Banjo could see that it had oranges hanging beneath its large, long leaves. He figured that meant it must be an orange tree.

As large as the tree was, it was nothing compared to what stood on top of its crown. It was a massive ape, an ape so large Banjo had to wonder how the tree held him. The ape was mostly a dark gray in color, though his muzzle, ears, and fore-paws were tan. The ape's face was made up mostly of a large muzzle whose teeth were slightly bared. And his eyes, set just above the front of his muzzle, were mean-looking and narrowed into a dangerous expression, though Banjo couldn't see anything that might be making the ape angry. His upper-body was thick and powerful with a huge, bulging chest and arms to match. Over his chest he wore a red, sleeve-less shirt, though it was very thin and didn't cover much at all of the ape's massive chest. He also wore black pants over his thick legs. And over his hind paws he wore massive, shiny black boots.

Banjo noticed with no small amount of apprehension that even one of the ape's boots, the smallest part of him, seemed to be bigger than Banjo himself. Overall, the ape looked none too friendly if the glare on his cruel-looking face was any indication. Banjo gulped. He was glad that the ape hadn't yet noticed them.

Behind the ape and his tree was a large structure that stood against the valley's wall and curved with the valley's curve. The structure was wooden and was covered in moss, and he could see that the top of it was flat. He'd be able to stand on it if he could get up there, though he could tell, even from this distance, that the structure reached far above his head. That might make getting on top of it difficult but he'd sure like to see what might be up there. Though the structure was mostly a tall, long, curving rectangle, parts of it were made out of square pillars. One part of the structure reached toward the ape's tree like a bridge, ending fairly close to the ape's tree.

Though the ape scared him, Banjo knew he couldn't let that stop him if he wanted to save Tooty, so he ran down the hill toward the orange tree to look around. He noticed with surprise that there were three switch-like objects on the ground around the ape's tree, positioned around it like the points of a triangle. As he got closer, he could see that the switches each bore a picture of what looked like an orange, bright orange-colored and round, and the backgrounds of the switches were all a pale brown.

Banjo wanted to see what the switches were about, but an angry call from the ape on top of the tree demanded his attention. Jumping in surprise, Banjo looked up at the ape.

"Grraar…" the ape growled. "This Conga's tree!" he roared, glaring at the bear and bird. "Me hit bear with oranges!"

Banjo yelped and dodged to the side as an orange went flying through the air, landing with a loud splat where he had been standing an instant before. Banjo, wide-eyed, stared at the smashed remains of the orange. That had been no causal toss; the orange was almost juiced.

"Whoa!" he yelled as Conga chucked another orange, and ran out of its path. He ran back the way he had come, away from the orange tree, though he made sure not to stop close enough to the violent bull, Bigbutt, to cause him to charge at them. He looked back at Conga. The ape had stopped throwing oranges, but Banjo guessed that if he went back over there, Conga would waste no time in resuming his onslaught.

While looking at and around Conga's tree, Banjo's attention was again caught by the three odd switches on the ground around it, the ones that were marked with a picture of an orange.

Banjo looked up at Conga cautiously, then back at the blocks, thinking. He didn't know what the switches would do when pressed, but he knew that he should try and find out. He wasn't sure if the switches would work when stepped on, so to test it, Banjo ran back toward Conga's tree and stepped on the nearest block. His weight, even when he tried jumping, did nothing to push down the block.

Conga was about to throw another orange, so Banjo ran before the orange left Conga's paw, not wanting to be hit by one.

An orange sailed through the air and hit the grass just behind him, splatting loudly. Glancing back at the squished orange, Banjo got an idea. Those oranges hit the ground hard, very hard from what he could tell, and even though he couldn't press the switches himself, maybe Conga's oranges could. The switches themselves even seemed to hint at that, stamped as they were with the picture of an orange.

Banjo spun around and ran back toward the switch he had just tried to press, stopping on top of it. The bear forced himself to stay still as he stood on top of the switch, knowing he had to wait until the orange had left Conga's hand. When he saw it go flying and heard the tell-tale swish, Banjo dove off of the block and out of the way. He turned around to look just as the orange hit, slamming into the switch and splattering orange juice all over it. But even so, Banjo could see the switch had been pressed; the raised part sank closer to the ground. To Banjo's surprise, when it was pressed the orange switch then disappeared from sight, fading into nothing. He shrugged it off. Weirder things had happened today.

Then Banjo grinned, proud his theory worked about the switch had worked. But he wondered why nothing was happening, even though the switch had been activated. Hearing Conga throw another orange, Banjo ran out of the way. As he did, he looked at the other two orange blocks. Maybe all three had to be pressed for whatever the switches did to happen? Banjo decided to see.

He ran onto the second switch, this one to the right of Conga's tree, the switch closest to the mountain, and stood still on it for a moment.

"Don't touch Conga's blocks!" Conga yelled angrily, which made Banjo wonder why Conga kept referring to himself in third person.

It seemed as though Conga was lacking something in the intelligence department, because the ape didn't appear to have learned his lesson when Banjo first tricked him. The orange went flying toward him. Banjo quickly stepped out of the way, and it struck the second switch with a splat. Again, nothing happened. More sure now that his theory was correct, he moved to the third and last switch to the left of Conga's tree.

Conga fell for it again, throwing another orange at Banjo. The bear jumped off the switch and watched as it was pressed as well. Immediately there was a flash of gold as a bright yellow Jiggy, exactly like the one they had found back in Gruntilda's Lair, few into the air from the where the third orange switch had been. It left sparks of gold behind it and landed on the ground near Banjo, bouncing slightly as it did.

"Grrr…" Conga growled, clearly angry and frustrated. He had paused in his throwing for a moment. "Clever bear find Conga's gold!"

Banjo could see why Conga thought the Jiggy was made of gold; it really did look similar to it. For all he knew, maybe Jiggies really were formed out of gold. Banjo scooped up the Jiggy quickly. "You must search for 10 of us on each World," the Jiggy said. "We'll help your progress through the witch's lair!"

Banjo was again unable to help but bounce on his feet, holding the Jiggy overhead, in a little dance. In the backpack, he heard Kazooie let out a loud sigh at his antics, though she didn't say anything this time.

As soon as Banjo was done with his dance, Kazooie poked her head of the pack and snatched the Jiggy from Banjo's paw. She pulled it back inside with her and stored it with the other things they had collected.

Bottles' voice sounded again. "When you're ready to leave this World, return to the start area and stand on the Exit Pad," he reminded them.

"Okay, Bottles," Banjo said. He looked up at the swish of something moving through the air, just in time to dodge an orange. Conga had started his attack once again.

Deciding to check it out, Banjo ran back toward the wooden, moss-streaked structure that was against the wall behind Conga's tree.

He headed toward it, walking around and then on the left of the bridge-like structure that jutted from it toward Conga's tree. This part of the moss-streaked structure was in an indent, like a hollow. The bridge was to the right- though there was an opening under the bridge, since the bridge only touched the ground in two places; at its beginning and end. The area in between was open air. To the left the mossy structure curved slightly, forming the rest of the tiny hollow.

In the center of this hollow and almost touching the structure behind it stood a little monkey. The monkey was quite thin, with brown fur about the same shade as Banjo's own fur, and with a pale colored muzzle and ears, which stuck out on either side of the monkey's head. His paws were also covered with pale fur.

The monkey stood on his hind feet with his fore-paws just above the ground in front of him. Banjo noticed the monkey was standing on what looked like an almost completely flat tree stump; it looked like what the top of a stump looks like, but was almost level with the grass around it.

Banjo stepped forward, and when the monkey saw him, his big eyes widened and his long tail flicked.

"Hello," Banjo said cautiously, stopping at the edge of the flattened stump. He was somewhat surprised that the monkey didn't move from the stump. And he didn't attempt to attack them like the other creatures they had encountered in Mumbo's Mountain so far had. He looked innocent enough, and Banjo wondered if this little monkey was different from Conga, Bigbutt, and the goblins and wasn't an enemy.

"Chimpy hungry. Wants orange now," the monkey told them. "Feed Chimpy!" The monkey- whose name must be Chimpy- was looking at them with pleading eyes. So Chimpy definitely wasn't an enemy, Banjo decided. And he looked so desperate, too. The monkey did look to be very thin, and Banjo felt sorry for him. Banjo glanced back at the orange tree on which Conga still stood. The ape chose that moment to pound his chest threateningly, which didn't exactly encourage Banjo to go near him, but if the little monkey was hungry…

"Get it yourself, fur ball!" Kazooie, who had stuck her head out of the pack when she'd heard the monkey speak, called to Chimpy. She wasn't scared of going back near Conga, Banjo knew. In fact, he suspected that she liked the danger of it. After all, Kazooie had wanted an adventure and this certainly counted as one. But he also knew that she didn't care to go out of her way to help others; and since she was Banjo's partner and spent all her time in the backpack Banjo wore, when he went out of his way to help others, she had to come along for the ride.

Chimpy shook his head rapidly at Kazooie's words. "Chimpy can't. Conga scares Chimpy!"

The little guy stared at them with the same begging expression as before, and Banjo decided that, intimidating ape or not, he was going to get Chimpy his food.

"Alright, Chimpy," he said. "Wait here, we'll be right back with an orange!"

Chimpy perked up and he did a quick backflip, letting out a happy screech. Banjo turned to head back toward Conga.

"Banjo!" Kazooie complained.

"We have to help, Kazooie."

"We'd just better get something out of this!" she grumbled, before diving back into the backpack.

Banjo didn't care much about getting a reward, he just wanted to help. The honey bear ran back toward Conga's tree. Conga let out a loud irritated grunt when he saw Banjo coming and started throwing oranges again. Knowing he probably couldn't catch these oranges to give to Chimpy and deciding it was best not to try, Banjo just dodged them.

He could see oranges hanging beneath the leaves of Conga's tree, and knew that he'd have to get up there to grab one. So Banjo, having managed to avoid being hit by Conga's attacks, reached the base of the tree and sprang up, gripping its bark. He climbed as quickly as he could, glad to see that Conga was having a hard time figuring out how to hit Banjo through the leaves, since the bear was beneath the crown of the tree and Conga stood on top of it.

Banjo snatched an orange that hung just under the leaves; a nice large one that he hoped would be enough for Chimpy.

"Hey… That Conga's orange! Put it back!"Conga demanded.

"Come and get it, Banana Brain!" Kazooie yelled tauntingly.

"Kazooie, don't make him any angrier!" Banjo pleaded, leaping down from the tree and dodging a projectile citrus when he landed.

"Yum…" said the orange Banjo had snatched from the tree. "Oranges are nice!"

Banjo decided that was disturbing for several reasons. Like, why would it say yum when referring to its own kind? And, since it was alive, he started to feel bad for the ones Conga was tossing at them. Of course, the oranges probably fell under the category of items that Bottles had said were magically animated, so Banjo tried not to think about it.

Instead, he ran back toward the stump where Chimpy stood, and tossed the orange down on the ground to the side of the little primate.

"Oh… Chimpy like Conga's orange, Chimpy help fat bear and bird!" the monkey said. He happily ran down from the flattened stump on which he'd stood, grabbed the orange and ran past Banjo. He half circled the bear, ran behind him and to the right, then under the part of the wooden structure that jutted toward Conga's tree like a bridge.

But Banjo only half noticed Chimpy's departure, because when the monkey stepped off of the flattened stump, the ground began to shake with a rumble, sending dust into the air. The stump rose up from the ground, getting taller, until it reached just above Banjo's head. It stopped rising and the shaking ground settled. But as it rose, Banjo saw a Jiggy sparkle into existence on top of it.

Banjo blinked at the newly raised stump. "How'd he do that?" he wondered. He hadn't seen Chimpy do anything but step off the stump, he hadn't seen him do anything else that might have triggered the stump's rising.

"Who cares?" Kazooie squawked. "What I want to know is if he was calling me fat, too, or just you."

"Err, I don't know," Banjo said. The top of the newly raised stump was close enough to the top of the wooden structure that Banjo guessed they could quite easily get up there if they used the Flap Flip while on the stump. When the stump had been flat, they'd never have been able to get on the structure. That must have been what Chimpy meant when he said he'd help them.

Banjo ran forward and jumped up onto the stump. He picked up the Jiggy and did his dance again.

"At least we got a Jiggy from the fur ball," Kazooie said, sticking her head out of the backpack. The red-crested breegull grabbed this Jiggy as well, adding it to the other one they had, and then poked her head back out. "Are you going to do that every time we get one of those?" she asked, meaning his dance.

"I think so," Banjo said with a nod. After all, if Jiggies opened up more Worlds than just Mumbo's Mountain, like Bottles said they would, then every Jiggy they collected got them closer to rescuing Tooty. And Banjo couldn't help but be glad enough to dance a little if they were closer to saving his little sister.

Kazooie shrugged. "Just checking," she said.

They used the Flap Flip to backflip up from the stump onto the wooden structure. They were now on a narrow, curving ledge that was covered in grass. The valley's sheer wall was just ahead of them and the ledge stretched out to either side. To the left of them, the ledge ended abruptly, and beyond it were four separate, small platforms in a line. To their right the structure curved into that bridge that stretched toward Conga's tree, ending in a circular platform within Conga's throwing distance. Banjo decided not to head over there quite yet.

Just in front of them and lining the middle of the ledge was a number of what looked to Banjo like light blue eggs with brown specks. The eggs, to his shock, were hopping on the ground and moving a little bit to either side and back again as they did.

Just past the eggs, tucked into a corner of the ledge just ahead and a little to the left of them was one of Bottles' molehills. Banjo would definitely check in with Bottles to see what their next new Move would be, but first he wanted to see what the mysterious hopping eggs were about.

Banjo was just about to pick up one of the blue eggs, when Bottles dug himself out of the molehill until he stood on top of the mound. "Before you pick that up," Bottles said, stopping him, "come over here."

Banjo obediently stepped around the eggs and stopped in front of Bottles.

"Time for the buzzard to learn the 'Ancient Ways of the Egg'," Bottles announced grandly.

Seeming intrigued by the title Bottles had given the Move, Kazooie said, "I'm listening, Beetle Breath…"

"Banjo crouches down, then you look over his head and cough to shoot an egg out of your mouth!"

"Hey… Sounds cool!" Kazooie said, her tone excited. Banjo mentally agreed. "Anything else?" his breegull partner asked.

"Sure…" Bottles grinned in a way that made Banjo nervous. "Push from your other end instead and you can shoot them out from behind!"

Both Banjo and Kazooie winced. "Sheesh…" Kazooie groaned. "Sounds painful, I wish I'd never asked…"

Bottles, grinning in obvious amusement from Kazooie's reaction, explained in more detail how to fire the eggs, and how to get them inside of Kazooie in the first place.

"Bird Brain can carry 100 Eggs in her backpack," Bottles continued when he was done with his explanation. "Oh… and you can also shuffle around, Banjo, to aim while you are crouching. Eggs-citing, huh? Now that you've learned to use the eggs, here's 50 to practice with!"

Kazooie let out a surprised squawk as Banjo felt the backpack get suddenly heavier, and he glanced over his shoulder to see Kazooie looking down at the eggs that had magically appeared in her backpack. Banjo looked back toward Bottles just in time to see the mole dive back into his molehill. He showered the duo with dirt as he dug back down.

"If he had stayed I would have shot him with an egg just for that pun!" Kazooie told Banjo, shaking dirt from her feathers. "Eggs-citing?"

Banjo turned and picked up one of the blue eggs that were lined along the top of the platform near Bottles' molehill, like he'd planned before Bottles called him over, and it started talking: "We're the Eggs! Kazooie can learn to use us as ammo!" By this point, Banjo decided not to even try and look for a mouth on the egg- to be honest he'd be worried if it had one.

Banjo grabbed the other eggs that sat along the ledge and added them to the backpack as well. Then, to further delay going back over to where Conga waited because, no doubt, he would waste no time attempting to squash them, he headed left toward the short ledges that were lined to the left of the long, curving platform on which they stood. He'd head right toward the bridge-like part that led toward Conga after he checked out the smaller ledges... and gathered some courage.

The nimble bear easily leapt over to the first one, the gap he had to jump being fairly short. This ledge was plain wood, unlike the one he'd just jumped from that was covered with grass. He could see that the other three ledges ahead of him, each of which rose higher from the ground than the last, were also covered in plain wood. This ledge held two more eggs, and Banjo collected them before leaping on to the next.

This ledge held a different item. He was not pleased to find it was a second Mumbo Token. The skull-like item sat in the middle of the ledge, its gray surface sparkling in the sun like its fellow that was in Kazooie's backpack had. Though he knew that it wasn't a real skull, like Kazooie had confirmed, he still didn't want it in the backpack. He sighed and added it anyway, and now they had two Mumbo Tokens.

The third ledge, like the first, held two more blue eggs. Banjo picked them up and leapt to the fourth and last ledge.

He almost fell off the ledge when he saw what was on it. In the center of the ledge, taking up most of the space, was a switch. It was not an orange switch like the ones that had been around Conga's tree. No, this switch bore a picture of Gruntilda the witch's hideous face. Her mouth open in a grin that revealed four square teeth, one eye slightly narrowed, the other open wide, and her black hair, witch's hat, and part of her purple and pink scarf.

"Kazooie, look at this thing!" Banjo said, stepping as far backward from the switch as he could without stepping off the ledge.

Kazooie poked her head out of the pack and looked at the switch with Grunty's picture. "Yuck!" she exclaimed. "You could have given me a warning that I'd have to see that hag's ugly face again!"

Banjo silently agreed. Grunty's face was not pleasant to look at. But at least this switch had a smaller picture of her than the portrait in the Lair's entrance room did. She'd looked even worse in a picture that big.

"What kind of switch is this, Bottles?" Banjo asked the air, hoping Bottles would hear like he always seemed to.

"This is a Grunty Switch," Bottles' voice told them. "Grunty Switches are switches the witch spread throughout the Worlds. There's a Grunty Switch to be found in each of the Worlds. When pressed, they cause a Jiggy to appear somewhere inside of her lair. Gruntilda created them to keep some of the Jiggies safety hidden. However she didn't hide all of the switches themselves very well, though some might be difficult to find."

"How do we press them?" Banjo asked.

"Come find me at one of my molehills in this World, and I'll explain more," Bottles responded.

"Okay, Bottles," Banjo agreed. The honey bear turned back the way he had come, and jumped down the ledges until he landed back on the long curving ledge next to the molehill from which Bottles taught Kazooie Egg Firing from.

Knowing that it was time to check out the bridge-like part that jutted toward Conga's tree, Banjo headed over. The bridge sloped higher than the structure he came from, and ended in a circular, flat-topped pillar. Though the structure and the bridge were both covered in grass, the grass ended abruptly as the bridge reached its end. The pillar's top was plain wood. The pillar was the end of the bridge, and was the closest part to Conga's and his tree. Banjo stepped onto it, not sure what to do and jumpy about being back within firing range of Conga. The pillar didn't give him much room to dodge the ape's orange missiles.

Conga stood directly in front of the pillar, within throwing distance and at about the same height as Banjo, though of course since he was much bigger than Banjo his head still rose far above the bear's. When Banjo stepped onto the pillar, Conga saw him and said, "Me safe here… Bear can't hit Conga!" Conga pounded his chest a few times, and to Banjo's surprise threw no oranges.

"Can't hit him, huh?" Kazooie asked, her head coming out of the pack. "We'll see about that! I think a nice blue egg will hit him just fine!"

"Fire an egg at him?" Banjo said, somewhat bothered by the idea. "But he's not attacking us right now…"

"Banjo, he's already tried to hit us with a bunch of oranges!" Kazooie pointed out. "He's been asking for it since we got here!"

"I guess," Banjo said reluctantly. He didn't want to attack someone who wasn't attacking them at the moment. But it was true that Conga had tried to attack them before, and Banjo guessed if they went anywhere near the territorial ape's tree again, he'd start attacking once more for sure. And Banjo remembered that Conga was a minion of Grunty, and Grunty had kidnapped his little sister. That meant Conga was as much his enemy as Grunty was, and he wouldn't hesitate to attack Grunty.

"Alright, Kazooie," he agreed.

Banjo crouched down and Kazooie stuck her head over his in a quick movement. Banjo balanced the best he could, his fore-paws touching the ground in front of him to help him balance. Then he heard Kazooie make a coughing sound as she fired an egg from her beak.

Banjo watched with surprise the high speed of the blue egg as it was launched toward Conga. It shattered against the ape's chest, breaking into fragments that flew everywhere, and Conga let out a screech.

"Yarrrr!" he yelled furiously, and threw an orange at the duo. "Egg hurt Conga!"

The space between them and the tree was short enough that Banjo had barely any time to dodge. He let out a yelp and sprang straight up into the air. The orange splat against the ground beneath him, and Banjo landed in the pulped orange juice.

Wasting no time- he'd shake the stickiness from his hind paws later- Banjo crouched down a second time and Kazooie obliged, firing another egg.

Like the one before it, this egg, too, broke against Conga's chest, and he let out another screech. Conga, even more furious than before, threw another orange, this time following it closely with another.

Banjo just managed to jump over them, one then the other. Then he crouched down to allow Kazooie to fire a third egg.

It hit Conga hard, and the ape let out a roar before leaning over in defeat. His arms hung limply in front of him as he recovered from the egg attack. "Urggg!" Conga groaned. "Bear beat Conga. Me give prize to bear…"

Though the ape's tone was reluctant, Banjo and Kazooie both watched with surprise as a Jiggy went flying from Conga, leaving a trail of gold sparkles and landing on the ground beside his tree.

"Ha!" Kazooie said. "That was more fun than I thought it'd be!" She'd clearly enjoyed the use of her new Move.

"Err," Banjo said awkwardly. "Thanks for the Jiggy, Conga…"

Banjo jumped down from the platform, landing next to Conga's tree, and picked up the Jiggy the ape had dropped. He bounced on his feet with the Jiggy over his head in his Jiggy dance, and Kazooie snatched the Jiggy and put it in the pack. Now they had three Jiggies. Banjo wondered how many Jiggies there were on Mumbo's Mountain.

Again hearing the swish of an orange flying through the air, Banjo leapt out of the way, looking up to see Conga had recovered and started his attack again. The orange smashed against the ground behind him, missing completely.

Banjo looked around, but couldn't see anything more worth checking out in the area around Conga's tree other than the Grunty Switch, which he would have to return to once he'd spoken with Bottles. Guessing that he was otherwise done with that area, and knowing he was also done with the area across the lake, the first place they'd explored in Mumbo's Mountain, Banjo realized that they were likely completely done with the area that lay at the foot of the mountain.

Banjo ran back toward the lake, jumping up onto the platform near Bigbutt the bull, and looked toward the mountain. Directly ahead of him was the path he'd noticed earlier, the one made of wooden planks that headed up to the top of the mountain.

Since he was done with the areas at the base of the mountain, it was time to head up to the mountain's top and see what he could find there. Banjo jumped off the platform, being careful that Bigbutt didn't see him and charge them again, and he ran for the path to head up the mountain, wondering what adventures awaited them there.


	5. The Mundo Of Mumbo Jumbo Part 2

**Sorry that this one's a bit late, but here's the rest of the Mumbo's Mountain World. I'll be splitting all of the other Worlds into two chapters, as well. That way they aren't all 25,000 words apiece or something, especially the later and longer Worlds. Huh, I wonder how long the whole of Click Clock Wood would be in one chapter, or Rusty Bucket Bay, for that matter… That level drives me crazy because of the engine room part, and the rush to the Jiggy behind the propellers, though that same part is also oddly fun- just panic inducing. **

**On another subject, if anyone likes The Lion King, please check out my other two stories; To Reclaim A Birthright, my first story and my main one, and Star of Light, a Christmas based short-story. **

**Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter!**

The path leading up the mountain was lined with Musical Notes, and Banjo scooped them up as he ran. He stopped at the top of the path and added the Notes, of which there were nine, to Kazooie's backpack. They now had twenty-two out of one hundred. Banjo recalled the first Note they'd found had told them there would be one hundred Notes on Mumbo's Mountain. He knew they had to be collected and now they were making some progress with that, though they still had a long way to go.

Right in front of them now was the massive structure that he'd noticed when he first came into Mumbo's Mountain, the pillar that rose from the center of the mountain top and was visible from anywhere in the World. Up close, it seemed even more massive. Rising far above his head, the very tall and thick pillar was roughly cylindrical in shape and was covered in yellowish-brown splotches veined with green, which he thought might be moss. Close behind the tower, across from Banjo, was the valley's cliff wall. The ground around the tower was grass, greenest directly around the tower, and sparser, with more dirt patches, farther away.

"Hup-two-three-four!" Banjo started at the high-pitched call and looked in the direction from which it had come. He yelped loudly when he saw the call had come from a giant termite. Much larger than the bear and pale pink in color, the termite walked around nearby with its six, white colored legs tapping quickly against the ground with audible clicks. It had glaring yellow eyes on top of its massive head, which matched the unnatural size of its body. "Hup!" it called. "Hup-two-three-four!"

The termite creature had clearly seen Banjo, but seemed to be paying him no attention despite this. Banjo hoped it stayed that way.

He glanced around the tower again, and with another nervous jolt, spotted a second termite, this one also huge, wandering around the tower's back. Like its fellow, it was also chanting the military call and ignoring the pair. Banjo was really glad that his house was made largely out of stone, because if there were termites this size around, he definitely didn't want the wood-eating insects moving in with him.

Banjo's jaw dropped in shock as he suddenly realized the massive tower must be a termite mound. These giant termites must have built it, and, given its size, that was an impressive deed.

Turning his attention away from the termites and their mound, Banjo looked to his left. Ahead and right next to the path he stood on, the mountain rose in a short slope of bare dirt. He could see another path, short to match the slope it followed, that led up the slope. To the right side of the tower, he could just see part of another slope leading to another area, though the termite's tower blocked him from seeing anything else in that direction. He decided to head left first, since that way was closer.

He walked up the short path, which was made of wooden planks just like the path before it. There were Notes to be found on this path as well, four of them, and Banjo added them to the backpack and continued on his way.

Banjo stopped in surprise when he got to the top of the slope.

To their left was another one of Bottles' molehills, but that wasn't what surprised him. Ahead of them was a structure made of carved stones in the shape of a U with the open part of the shape in front of him. The structure reminded him strongly of Stonehenge. Banjo had seen pictures of it, and while this was definitely different in appearance, it still had some strong similarities. The top of the U shaped structure was flat and rested on top of rectangular stones which held it up. On that top he could see more Notes lined along its curve, and was that...? Yes, it was a third Jinjo. This one was orange, and it stood on one of the U shape's ends.

In the center of the U shaped formation was a square platform, rising a little bit above the ground, though it was still much shorter than the Stonehenge-like structure that surrounded it. And on that square platform sat a Jiggy.

Banjo ran forward, sprang on top of the platform, and grabbed the Jiggy. He bounced cheerfully on his feet in his Jiggy dance, and then Kazooie took the golden Jigsaw piece from his paw and put it in the backpack. That was another Jiggy added to their growing collection.

Banjo looked upward toward the orange Jinjo he'd noticed when he heard it calling "Help!" and leapt down off of the square platform.

"Coming, Mr. Jinjo!" he assured it, walking back to where he'd stood at the top of the path.

Part of the Stonehenge structure, slightly to their right, was collapsed. One of the rectangular stones was leaning against another, and it created a slope for him to climb to reach the top, where the Notes and the Jinjo were.

Banjo leapt onto the sloping stone, intending to climb it. He let out a yelp as his paws slid out from under him, and he fell on his stomach. He slid back down the slope and fell off the bottom onto the grass. He got to his feet, shook himself, confirmed that Kazooie was okay, and then looked up, frowning. If it was too steep for him to climb, then how was he supposed to reach the Jinjo and the Notes?

Bottles' voice speaking from nowhere answered his question: "Things a bit slippy, huh?" he said. "Find me and I'll teach you how to get up steep slopes!"

Banjo looked to his left at the molehill. Well, that was convenient, it being right there. With a grin, Banjo ran over to it.

Once again, Bottles pulled himself from the ground quickly, shaking dirt from his glasses and jacket.

He launched into his next lesson without preamble: "The Talon Trot will let Kazooie tackle steep slopes with ease!"

Hoping that now he'd be able to get up that Stonehenge structure, Banjo said, "That sounds useful, how does she do it?"

"You crouch, then Kazooie sticks her legs out of the bottom of the backpack and her head out of the top, then Banjo, you lean back until Kazooie is standing on the ground and you're resting on her back. Her talons can grip most steep surfaces. Go practice!"

That lesson imparted, he dove back into the ground.

"Now wait a second, Beetle Breath!" Kazooie snapped, glaring at the molehill. "I'm not carrying Banjo around!"

"If you want to get where you're going, then you'd better reconsider," Bottles' voice told her. "Without the Talon Trot, you won't be able to go any farther in Gruntilda's Lair than you are now. And besides, weren't you looking for a chance at the witch?"

"And we have to save my sister," Banjo added.

Kazooie paused at that. She didn't like the idea of having to carry Banjo around. It was his job to carry her around in her backpack, not the other way around. But... if she couldn't get at the hag without using the Talon Trot, then she guessed she'd have to just accept the need to use the Move. If there was one thing the breegull wanted, it was to get a crack at Gruntilda. The ugly witch wouldn't know what hit her when Kazooie was through! Plus, Kazooie also wanted to rescue Tooty. The little bear wasn't so bad. And if in rescuing Tooty they got to beat Grunty, then it was all the better. And if she had to use the Talon Trot to get there, then she'd use it. Even so, she wasn't any less annoyed at the necessity of carrying a bear around on her back.

"Alright, fine!" Kazooie said after a moment. "I'll give it a try, but no promises."

"Great!" Banjo exclaimed, relieved at his friend's agreement.

When Banjo crouched, the irritated breegull put her head and wings out of the backpack, her talons coming out from two holes in the bottom of the pack. Those holes had been cut into the pack in case Kazooie wanted some extra leg room, and now they allowed her to stand. Banjo was now held up in a sitting position by Kazooie as she stood, and she rested her wings loosely on the outside of the pack.

Kazooie twisted her head to look back at Banjo, who now essentially sat on her back, the straps of the backpack around his arms holding him up. "Well, at least you're not as heavy as I thought you'd be," she commented.

Banjo wasn't sure how to respond to that. Kazooie might not be calling him fat. After all, she was a bird, and though she was a large one, birds usually wouldn't be able to carry around bears. Banjo wasn't that much bigger than his friend, though.

"Let's see…" Kazooie said to herself, turning back to look forward. She took a step forward and started walking slowly in a circle, testing out the Talon Trot. Banjo realized then that he couldn't see where they were going, since as Kazooie faced forward, he was facing backward.

Kazooie suddenly broke into a run, her talons keeping up dust from the ground as she ran in a circle, much faster than Banjo could run. "This isn't so bad," she said. "Alright, let's get this over with!"

She stopped running a circle and headed instead toward the Stonehenge-like structure again, over to the part where it was collapsed slightly and formed the slope Banjo hadn't been able to climb.

Banjo let out a yelp as Kazooie jumped through the air unexpectedly, and landed on the slope. When Banjo opened his eyes again, Kazooie was trotting the few feet up the stone slope, her talons gripping it easily where Banjo's feet had slid, and she jumped from there up onto the top of the U shaped structure.

"Now that we're up the slope it's your turn, Banjo," she announced. She leaned back, letting Banjo stand, and pulled herself back into the backpack. Obviously the bear had no choice in the matter; it was his turn to walk.

"Alright, Kazooie, thanks!" Banjo said, glad to be up the slope. He looked around the top of the structure. Ahead of them it curved then doubled back on itself to form the U shape. To their left was the structure's other end, and on it stood the orange Jinjo. Lining the U was a fairly large number of Notes, and Banjo picked them up and put them in the pack. That brought their Note count to forty, and he grinned as he walked around to the side where the Jinjo stood.

This orange Jinjo had a band of burnt yellow that stretched from its neck to the bottom of its torso. Banjo picked it up and freed it. It flew into the sky with a spirited cry of _"Jinjo!",_orange sparks trailing behind it.

Banjo smiled, glad to see the Jinjo free like the ones before it. Then he jumped off the edge of the Stonehenge structure, landing on the ground near Bottles' molehill. He then walked around the structure to see if they was anything else to be found. There was- on the far side, behind one of the structure's supporting stones, a third Mumbo Token sat, and he added it to the backpack as well. He also found a few blue eggs, which Kazooie added to her growing ammunition horde.

The part of the mountain the Stonehenge structure stood on sloped down to the part of the World where Conga and his tree was, and though Banjo had no desire to visit the violent ape again, he decided to check out the ledges he knew to be scattered along the mountainside there.

He guessed the hill would be too steep for him to walk on, so he stopped at the top of the mountainside. "Kazooie, can you use the Talon Trot here?" he asked.

Kazooie sighed. "Fine. At least I get to stretch my legs a bit," she said.

Banjo crouched down and Kazooie's legs came out of the bottom of the backpack. She stood up with Banjo on her back and turned to face the mountainside.

She stepped onto the slope and down to the first of the ledges, which was fairly close to the top. On it sat three Musical Notes. Kazooie grabbed them with her wing and put them in the pack, then ran over to the next ledge, which also held three Notes. It was the same thing with the ledge after that, as well.

The ledge that jutted from the center of the brown section of the mountain carried, instead of Notes, a fourth Jinjo. Once on that ledge, Kazooie pulled herself back into the pack and Banjo stood, then turned to face the Jinjo, which was a yellow one with an orange-ish front.

"Help!" it yelled, waving its arms above its head, and Banjo picked it up and freed it as well, then watched as it flew away. Unsurprisingly, the trail of sparks this one left in its wake was yellow.

Kazooie used the Talon Trot again and went over to the right and to another ledge, on which sat three more Notes. As she picked up the first and added it to the backpack, making the number of Notes they had fifty, they heard Bottles exclaim, "Yippee! You've collected enough Notes to break the first Note Door spell!"

"What's a Note Door?" Banjo asked, still resting on Kazooie's back. He remembered the first Note they found also mentioned a Note Door, and was getting quite curious about what they were talking about.

"You'll find out soon enough," Bottles said. "After you finish with this World."

"Just tell us and stop being so mysterious!" Kazooie snapped.

"Where's the fun in that?" the mole asked with a chuckle. "Besides, it will be easier to explain when you see the Note Door."

"Okay, Bottles…" Banjo sighed, putting aside his own curiosity as Kazooie let out a frustrated grumble.

Kazooie collected the other two Notes on the ledge, and then went to the remaining ledges on this part of the mountainside, each of which were near the bottom of the mountainside and carried three more Notes. The total number of ledges on the plain dirt section of the mountain was eight.

Once done with the ledges, and with sixty-one stored safely Notes in her backpack, Kazooie ran back up the mountain until they stood once more next to the Stonehenge structure, and then let Banjo regain his feet, while Kazooie retreated back into her pack.

Banjo, after a quick check around to be sure they were done with this part of the area, headed back down the short wooden path to the giant termites' tower, making sure to give the massive termite who wandered around near the back of the tower a wide berth.

Directly across from where they stood was the other slope Banjo had noticed earlier, the one that led to a new area, so he ran around the termites' tower to check it out. He reached the bottom of the slope, which had no path but didn't really look too steep for Banjo to walk up himself. He glanced back at the termites' tower, still amazed at its size, since it had been made by termites, and when he did he saw an opening in the tower's side.

Surprised, he turned around fully to look more closely. Banjo saw that the opening in the side of the tower was shaped like a door, and was large enough for him to enter. That made sense; after all, the termites that had made it were bigger than Banjo was, so they'd need a large opening to enter their mound.

With a sigh, Banjo realized that if he wanted to fully explore this area, he was going to have to go into the termites' tower, though the prospect was anything but inviting.

Banjo, his tread slow and reluctant, walked back toward the tower and through the entrance.

Once inside, the first thing he saw was another giant termite, clicking around in front of him, though like the others it ignored him. Banjo glanced around. The inside of the tower was largely what its outside would suggest; a fairly wide, very tall, cylinder shaped tower. Most of the inside was hollow, though sharply slanted ledges lined the walls in a steadily rising spiral, forming a path one could climb to the top of the tower's inside if they could avoid slipping.

Not terribly far above them, about a quarter up the tower, Banjo saw a mesh-like floor stretching between the tower's walls, forming a makeshift floor. The material was shaped like a spider web, though it looked far stronger than a spider web would be. Through the mesh floor's holes, Banjo could see another giant termite walking along on top of it, as well as a few more Musical Notes. The slanted ledge just below the mesh led to a large hole in the mesh floor, allowing a way from under the mesh floor to on top of it.

Past that mesh floor, Banjo could see that the next bunch of sharply slanted ledges led up to what looked to be another mesh floor, which, like the one before it, also had a large hole to allow passage. From there, he could just barely see that the last few ledges spiraled around the inside of the tower seemingly to the very top.

It looked uncomfortably high up to Banjo, but he guessed that he needed to get to the top of the termites' tower to see if there was anything up there. So he stepped further into the inside of the tower and headed in the direction of the first ledge, the one closest to the ground.

The giant termite, upon seeing him more fully enter its home, snapped, "Hey ugly! No bears allowed in Ticker's Tower!"

First Chimpy called him fat and now this termite called him ugly. Banjo tried not to be offended, but the creatures in Mumbo's Mountain were a bit rude.

Banjo edged around the termite, which, though it glared at him, just turned and went about what it had been doing before; wandering around the small area that was the floor of the tower seemingly at whim.

He wondered if this tower being named Ticker's Tower meant that the giant termites who lived here were called Tickers. They didn't seem like normal termites, given their size, and the name Ticker would certainly fit them, with the way their legs clicked against the ground. Banjo decided he'd just go ahead and think of them as Tickers.

Banjo ran up the first ledge, which was far less slanted than the ones that followed it, allowing even the bear's less capable feet to easily grip it. However he could see the next ledge, just ahead of them, was slanted enough that he'd definitely need the help of Kazooie's Talon Trot.

Also, he saw that the next ledge held yet another Mumbo Token, which glinted with reflected light even in the fairly dim tower.

"Kazooie, I think we'll need the Talon Trot again," Banjo told his friend.

Kazooie groaned, but when Banjo crouched she stuck her talons out of the backpack, anyway.

The red-crested breegull, with Banjo on her back, sprang over the gap between the two ledges, landing on the slanted platform, and then trotted forward to the Mumbo Token. "It's another of those Tokens. How many of these freaky things are there?" Kazooie demanded as she picked it up with her wing and put the Mumbo Token with the other three in her backpack.

"They are creepy..." Banjo agreed. "I wonder what they're for."

Kazooie shrugged her wings, then jumped toward the next ledge. The instant her talons hit the slick surface, however, they started to slide out from under her. This ledge was even more steeply slanted than the one before it. Kazooie let out a startled squawk and Banjo yelped as they plunged off of the ledge and toward the ground.

Kazooie managed to land on her talons, and immediately straightened to stand. Luckily they hadn't landed on the Ticker. Banjo thought that it probably would have hurt a bit if they had.

"Sheesh!" Kazooie exclaimed. "What's with that ledge?"

Without giving Banjo time to answer her irritated and apparently rhetorical question, Kazooie raced back over to the first ledge and sprang onto it. From there she jumped back onto the second ledge, and then toward the third ledge, the one they'd slipped from earlier, clearly determined to stay on it this time.

Unfortunately, just like before, when Kazooie landed on the ledge she couldn't find any purchase, and once again they fell to the ground.

As Kazooie, more frustrated than ever, started back toward the ledge to try again, Banjo said, "Maybe we should try to find another way up, Kazooie."

"Some use this Talon Trot turned out to be," Kazooie grumbled, slowing to a stop on the first ledge. "Dumb mole doesn't know what he's doing." She looked over her shoulder at Banjo. "Fine, let's get outta here," she snapped, then leaned back and allowed Banjo to stand, retreating into the backpack.

Hoping he could find some other way to make it to the top of the giant termite mound, Banjo left the mound and walked forward, heading up the slope to the final unexplored area of Mumbo's Mountain. When he got to the top of the slope he was greeted with a strange sight; the area ahead of them was littered with little huts, barely larger than Banjo, which were made out of wood and straw and ringed in a wide circle. One of the goblin-like creatures he'd faced earlier wandered around among the small huts, but as it hadn't yet seen them, Banjo paid it no attention.

In the center of the circle of huts was a stone podium, and placed in the center of that podium was a carved stone totem pole made up of four sections stacked on each other. Each of the totem pole's four sections was carved with a gargoyle-like face, complete with bat-like ears, ruby eyes, and most notably, wide, gaping mouths. Curiously, the totem pole spun endlessly, as though its base were connected to a carousel.

Glinting inside the mouth of one of the totem pole's sections- the one that was third from the bottom- was another Extra Honeycomb, which Banjo was glad to see. Though he did wonder how he'd be able to collect it, since the totem pole was quite large and he wasn't sure he could climb it to reach the Honeycomb.

Ahead and to their left, Banjo noticed another of Bottles' molehills, pressed close to the Mumbo's Mountain border. A little farther ahead from that was a somewhat unnerving sight. On yet another pedestal of stone sat a hut quite different from the wood and straw ones Banjo had just noted; this hut was much larger, and was made out of roughly carved yellow stone. The unnerving part was that it was in the shape of a giant skull, with deep recesses that formed the hollow eye sockets, two smaller holes just below and between them that formed the nostrils, and below them, a large carved doorway where the mouth would be. Banjo saw that in the skull's left eye socket spun a golden Jiggy, reachable by Flapflip, and he decided that he'd get it after he'd checked out the rest of the area. On top of the skull hut were three giant red feathers, much like Kazooie's in appearance if not size, perched on top of the skull like the feathers in a head-dress. Then, to the right of the feathers was a crooked metal chimney. A small ramp made of wooden planks led up to the skull-hut's pedestal.

While most of Mumbo's Mountain was bordered by a cliff wall, the wall to the back and the right of the massive skull was made of pale brown logs that were lashed together and stretched vertically from the ground toward the sky. The logs, each of which about as wide as Banjo's body, were long ones, and reached as high from the ground as the cliff wall itself did- precisely, in fact. Banjo guessed they had been cut quite carefully to match the cliff height. The logs were so close set to the cliff wall that the Mumbo's Mountain border changed almost seamlessly from stone cliff to the lashed-together logs.

"That's really creepy," Banjo said, referring to the skull-shaped hut. "Who would make their house in the shape of a skull?"

"I think it's kinda neat, actually," Kazooie said, tilting her head to the side as she looked at the hut.

Banjo shook his head doubtfully, but didn't respond. There were a lot of things to look at in this area, but he decided to head first to Bottles' molehill, which was off to their left.

He stepped up to the mound of earth, and like always, Bottles popped up almost instantly.

"I call this the Beak Buster," Bottles told them, "jump into the air, then twist around so your head is facing the ground, to send Kazooie slamming hard down to the floor beak first!"

"Gulp…" Kazooie said nervously, her eyes widening at Bottles' phrasing. "I don't like the sound of that, Banjo…"

"Get used to it, Nest Girl, you'll be using it a lot!" Bottles said, somewhat snidely.

"What can we use this move for?" Banjo asked.

"The Beak Buster can be used to break some kinds of objects and press switches, like that Grunty Switch you two saw earlier," Bottles explained. Then he blinked as though realizing something. "Woaaa, Banjo!" Bottles grinned. "There's nothing more I can teach you on this World!"

"That's great, Bottles!" Banjo exclaimed.

"There's still a lot more to learn, though. Look for my molehills in the other Worlds, as well," Bottles said, and then dug back into the ground.

"'Slamming me hard down to the floor?'" Kazooie repeated loudly, staring at the molehill Bottles had just vanished back into, her eyes still quite wide. "Is Bottle Brain completely crazy?"

"Maybe we won't have to use it too often," Banjo offered, though he distinctly remembered Bottles saying they'd be using it a lot.

Kazooie scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Sure, we won't!" she shot back sarcastically, then sighed. "Beak Buster… Well, at least the name sounds promising. There are a few things I would love to bust." She withdrew into her pack.

Banjo nodded in agreement, then looked around them, deciding where to go next.

He noticed something on top of the nearest straw and wood hut, something golden colored that sparkled in the sun; so he jumped up on top of the hut to have a look. Sitting on the center of the hut's straw top was another Musical Note! Banjo picked it up. Glancing around the area, he saw that there were a total of six small huts, including the one he stood on, and each of the other five held a Note on top of them as well!

Banjo was about to jump off of the hut and head to the next one, when he noticed just how breakable the hut felt under his paws. He glanced down at the hut, then over at Bottles' nearby molehill. He'd noticed that whenever Bottles taught them a new Move, his molehill seemed to be placed very nearby a place where they'd need to use that Move. So it wouldn't surprise him if that was the case here as well. He looked down at the hut once more, and then shot a slightly guilty look over his shoulder at Kazooie's backpack. The new Move had sounded as if it would be painful for his friend, and he didn't like to ask her to use it. He suspected, though, that if he wanted to get through Gruntilda's Lair and rescue Tooty, they would, as Bottles had pointed out, need it a lot

"Err, Kazooie?" he said. "I think we might need to use your Beak Buster here…"

"Alright, I'll have a go at it," Kazooie agreed, though a little hesitantly.

Banjo sprang into the air, and then twisted forward, tucking his head, arms, and legs in, so that he was completely upside-down in mid-air. He felt Kazooie stick her head out and aim her beak at the ground as they fell toward it, and, with a strangely satisfying smash, the hut cleaved apart under the blow. The wooden parts of the hut were shattered and sent flying, while the straw top dropped to the ground in a heap. Banjo twisted back around as they fell the rest of the way, landing neatly on his paws in the straw, the broken remains of the hut raining down around them.

Just as he'd suspected, there was something inside of the hut. Five Notes went flying in all directions, each dropping to the ground a short distance from the destroyed hut.

"Wow, way to go, Kazooie!" Banjo exclaimed, impressed with her new Move's power.

"Ha, that was great!" Kazooie squawked exuberantly.

"It didn't hurt?" Banjo asked, surprised and relieved.

"Nope," Kazooie said. "That hut was way too weak! It would've had to be a lot more solid than that to even sting."

"Great!" Banjo exclaimed. He looked around. "I think we'll need to use it on these other huts, too, Kazooie."

"Let's go!" Kazooie insisted eagerly. Clearly, she'd enjoyed turning the hut into rubble. For that matter, Banjo had enjoyed it as well.

Banjo picked up the five Notes that had flown out of the hut. As he did, he heard a "Nya-ha-ha!" and spun around to see the goblin-like creature running at him with its arms raised. Banjo immediately fell into a Forward Roll, slamming into the goblin before it got close to them, then rolled to his feet as it hit the ground.

Feeling rather proud of his fast reaction, Banjo picked up the unconscious beast's dropped Honeycomb and happily ate it. Then he headed toward the next hut, closer to the slope that led to the giant termite hill, and jumped up onto it, scooping up the Note that sat on top. He then jumped into the air, twisted around, and Kazooie's beak met the hut with another resounding crash.

Just as before, the wooden part of the hut shattered while the straw top just dropped to the ground, and they landed on top of the straw pile as the debris fell around them. This hut had contained five blue eggs, and Banjo quickly collected them as well.

When they broke the next hut, Banjo let out a cry of shock when, instead of any collectable items, a goblin came flying out. It skidded to a halt on the floor, then with the "Nya-ha-ha!" Banjo now knew to be the signature cry of its species, it ran at the bear and bird duo.

It had almost reached them, obviously intending to attack as its fellow had done, when Banjo recovered from his surprise enough to make the first hit with his Claw Swipe Move. He sighed, glad that it hadn't been able to hurt them, as it, too, fell to the ground.

The fourth hut's Note brought them to seventy Notes, and Banjo gladly added it to the backpack. He was half-expecting another goblin to be inside this hut, too, when they broke it, but instead it was another Jinjo.

The Jinjo dropped to the ground nearby, wasting no time in raising its arms above its head and calling "Help!" Banjo turned to get a better look at it. This Jinjo looked like all the others in shape, and its coloring was mostly light green. Its front was a bright white, and its eyes were blue.

Banjo remembered that the first Jinjo they had found said that Gruntilda had imprisoned five of them on each World. Well, if Banjo was counting correctly, this Jinjo was the fifth and final Jinjo on Mumbo's Mountain, and he happily ran forward to free it.

The instant he had picked it up, the Jinjo went spiraling around them, leaving a trail of green sparks. And as it flew away, it dropped a golden Jiggy.

Banjo grabbed the Jiggy as it fell, and then cheerfully did his Jiggy dance. Kazooie, as was now her routine, snatched the Jiggy from his paw and put it in her backpack, bringing their Jiggy-count to five.

They now had half of the Jiggies on Mumbo's Mountain! Banjo cheered mentally. "Thank you, Mr. Jinjo!" he said aloud, calling after the green Jinjo.

With a new spring in his step, Banjo headed to the next hut. Inside that one was an Extra Life, and, thrilled again, Banjo grabbed it. Things were coming along wonderfully!

Banjo jumped onto the final hut and picked up the note that stood upon it. This meant that they now had seventy-two Notes. When they broke the last hut, Banjo was surprised to see a Jiggy fly out.

"Hey, look, Kazooie!" he said. "Another Jiggy!" He was surprised that they had found a Jiggy so soon after the last, and, with his Jiggy dance completed, he added it to the pack, as well.

Turning to the stone pedestal that stood in the middle of the area, the one that supported the totem pole, Banjo headed toward it. He jumped up onto the platform and landed on the grass in front of the spinning totem.

He didn't even blink when a deep, gravelly voice issued from the totem, though none of its four mouths moved; "We Juju, Mumbo's totem pole. Feed us with nice blue stones."

"What kind of name is Juju?" Kazooie asked the totem pole, sticking her head out of the pack. Then after a moment, she blinked and said, "Sheesh, I'm talking to a statue!"

"It said it's a totem pole," Banjo reminded her. It had also said it was Mumbo's totem pole, Banjo noted. He guessed he meant that it was the totem pole of Mumbo's Mountain.

"So I'm talking to a totem pole, that's _much _better!"

"Does it mean blue eggs?" Banjo wondered. He supposed that the eggs could be viewed as stones, and they were certainly blue.

"So it wants us to feed it eggs?" Kazooie asked. "I bet we'll get a Jiggy out of it, the way things are going… Alright, couple eggs, coming right up!"

Banjo crouched down obligingly so Kazooie could aim over his head, and as the revolving totem spun to face them once more, Kazooie shot an egg into the bottom section's gaping mouth.

Banjo yelped in surprise as the totem's lowest part seemed to be thrown backward away from them, out from under its fellows, and then, stranger yet, seemed to shrink in size as it flew backward until it had vanished altogether. The totem's remaining three sections dropped heavily to the ground, still stacked on top of each other. The section that had been second to the bottom was now the bottom section. As soon as it touched ground, the whole totem continued spinning, but at a speed almost twice as fast as before.

Taking it in stride, Kazooie just shot another egg as soon as this section's mouth was turned toward them. When the egg disappeared into the stone totem's mouth, it, like the section before it, was thrown backward, shrunk and vanished, allowing the two last sections to drop to the ground, and reducing the totem to half its original height.

Once again, the totem started spinning much more quickly than before, now at a somewhat dizzying speed, and Banjo was beginning to wonder whether Kazooie could get her next egg into its mouth when it was moving so fast.

He shouldn't have worried; Kazooie appeared to be a natural born marksman, and the egg flew straight into the center of the spinning statue's mouth.

The third section was thrown backward and shrunk, like the others, into nothing, leaving only one section of the totem's gargoyle-like design left, spinning perhaps four times as fast as when the duo had begun 'feeding' it.

"Oh, wait, Kazooie!" Banjo called, just as she was about to shoot an egg into the final section.

Kazooie paused. "What is it, Banjo?" she asked.

He glanced upward, remembering that there had been an Extra Honeycomb inside the third section's mouth. Sure enough, he spotted the Extra Honeycomb, but because all but one of the totem's sections had apparently ceased to exist, the Honeycomb no longer sat inside one of the totem's mouths. Instead, it floated in the air a fair distance above the final section, spinning itself and sparkling with golden light from the reflection of the sun.

Banjo decided not to question exactly how it was defying gravity, let alone how it must have somehow passed through the sections' tops as they dropped. However it worked, they had an Extra Honeycomb to collect.

"Can you get us on top of the totem, Kazooie?" Banjo asked, pointing upward.

Seeing the Honeycomb, Kazooie said, "No problem. Now get ready to Flap Flip!"

Banjo crouched, and then threw himself into a backflip. Kazooie's spread wings gave them the extra height they needed to land on top of the totem's spinning form, and Banjo staggered as he tried to keep his balance. Standing on the fast revolving totem, Banjo was spun with it, and he quickly started to get dizzy. The Extra Honeycomb hung, suspended in mid-air, above them, too high to reach with an ordinary jump. And so, with another Flap Flip, Banjo had grabbed the hollow Honeycomb out of the air and dropped back to stand in front of the totem.

"We have another Extra Honeycomb, Kazooie!" Banjo announced happily, knowing that meant that once they'd collected five others, their health and strength would increase like it had back at Spiral Mountain.

"Well, then put it in," Kazooie said sharply, nodding to her backpack, though Banjo could tell she was pleased about it, too.

Looking back at the remaining section of totem, Banjo crouched down again. Kazooie spat an egg over his shoulder and into the spinning totem's mouth. The final section was thrown backward and vanished like the three before it, and in its place a Jiggy exploded into existence.

Banjo stepped forward and picked it up, did his now required Jiggy dance, and Kazooie added the Jiggy to the backpack. Now they had seven out of ten Jiggies on Mumbo's Mountain. At the speed they were progressing, Banjo was starting to think they'd get through all of the Worlds attached to Grunty's Lair in no time flat.

Leaving a now empty podium behind and grinning widely, Banjo jumped back down to the ground and looked around.

There was a hill leading down from the area in which they stood- the one with the skull-shaped hut- to the area with the Exit Pad where Banjo and Kazooie had first entered Mumbo's Mountain, and the hill was littered with ledges, just like hill that was connected to the Stonehenge-like area. But before heading down this hill, Banjo wanted to have a look inside the skull-hut.

Banjo walked over toward the giant skull, looking up at its hulking shape with slight trepidation. He was about to go up the wooden ramp to the podium that supported it when he saw a gray flash coming from under the ramp, highly visible through the slates between the sticks that made up the ramp.

Banjo walked around to the side of the ramp. Under the ramp, set between the ramp's slanted surface and the podium it led up to, was a fifth Mumbo Token. Banjo grabbed it and added it to the others.

Having done that, he walked up the ramp itself and stopped in front of the entrance to the skull-shaped hut- the gaping hole in the skull where the mouth would be.

Remembering the Jiggy he'd noticed in the skull's left eye socket, Banjo enlisted Kazooie's help once more for yet another Flap Flip, flipping up to land in the stone socket. He snatched the Jiggy, and once again bounced on his feet with the hand that held the Jiggy above his head, before Kazooie grabbed it and put it with the others.

Hopping back down from the stone eye socket, Banjo turned to look at the skull-hut's entrance. Someone must live in there, and Banjo just hoped they were friendly- though the fact that they lived in a house shaped like a skull didn't exactly seem to support that hope. Still, it was a lot less scary looking than everything they'd seen of the witch's lair so far, and Banjo hesitated only a moment before walking inside.

The entrance formed a short tunnel, and Banjo stepped out of it into a small, almost cozy looking room. The hut held only the single room, round in shape, with posts topped with torches curving around its parameters. There were four torches, two on each side of the room, and only three of them were lit, but the fire crackled pleasantly in the background and kept the room comfortably warm. There were four Musical Notes scattered around the hut, each placed next to a torch post. One of the torch posts, the one almost directly across from Banjo but a little to his right, had a square sign on it, bearing the picture of a Mumbo Token next to a large red colored number five. Banjo wasn't sure what to make of that.

The ground was bare dirt around the edges of the hut, but in the center of the floor was a circular mat of woven grass, reaching to almost the edges of the room. The mat had a strange object sat on its center; it reminded Banjo of a raised switch, but it was in the shape of a skull with emerald eyes- eyes that continuously flashed bright then dark again.

But Banjo only noticed those things in passing. What had his immediate attention when he walked into the room was the golden-colored chair placed against the wall directly across from him. Or rather, what had his attention was the person who slept in it.

Banjo had never seen anyone who looked quite like the creature in the chair whose loud snores filled the hut. The creature's head was in the shape of a yellow skull with three red feathers perched on its crown, just like the appearance of the hut they stood in. His hinged jaw opened widely and shut again with every snore. The creature's arms and legs were normal enough, though a strange shade of darkish-pink, and his front was yellow in a way that distinctly reminded Banjo of a Jinjos pattern of color, though the creature was much larger than a Jinjo; slightly larger than Banjo, in fact. Instead of something similar to the yellow shorts Banjo favored, the creature wore something similar to a loin cloth, though one woven out of browned grass. Finally, clutched in the creature's hand even as he slept, was a brown, stick-like staff, topped with a miniature yellow skull with black pits for eyes, and whose three red feathers emerged from its chin rather than the top of its head.

Banjo stepped forward cautiously. "Err… Excuse me?" he said. "I'm sorry to wake you…"

The owner of the hut jerked awake with a groan, opening bright blue eyes inside of the skull's sockets, and Kazooie poked her head out of the pack curiously.

"Me Mumbo, best Shaman in all game, can help Banjo and filthy feathered one," the skull-headed creature, apparently named Mumbo, announced before Banjo could say anything more. Banjo was really starting to wonder why so many of the creatures he met spoke in third person. He supposed that Juju the totem pole was actually owned by this Shaman, Mumbo, then.

"Watch it, Hut Boy!" Kazooie snapped at Mumbo, irritated about the feather comment. She kept her feathers clean!

Mumbo continued as if he had not heard the breegull, "Mumbo's magic Tokens hid by witch, find Tokens and Mumbo help you."

"How did you know my name, Mr. Mumbo?" Banjo asked.

"That is simple. Mumbo know everything!"

Banjo blinked, unable to decide if Mumbo was joking or not. Then he remembered something else Mumbo had said. "Mr. Mumbo, did you just say you were the best Shaman in all _game_?"

"Hey, that's right, he did," Kazooie realized.

"Err… Did Mumbo say game?" the witch doctor asked, fidgeting suddenly. "Mumbo meant to say world. Yes, Mumbo best Shaman in all world!"

Banjo blinked again, bewildered by Mumbo's sudden shiftiness. "…Alright," he said after a pause. "So this World is named after you?"

"That right. Mumbo own mountain, so he name mountain Mumbo's Mountain."

"Gee, how original of you," Kazooie commented.

"Don't be rude, Kazooie!" Banjo told his friend, then turned back to the Shaman. "So you're going to help us against the witch if we find the Tokens, Mr. Mumbo?" he asked.

"Mumbo just Mumbo, not Mr. Mumbo. Yes, Mumbo help bear and bird against witch if they find Tokens. Grunty Mumbo not like."

"Neither do we," Banjo agreed. "She took my sister, Tooty. We're trying to rescue her now."

"And beat the old hag!" Kazooie added, her beak curving into a grin at the thought.

"Mumbo know witch take Banjo's sister. Mole tell Mumbo."

"You know Bottles?" Banjo asked in surprise. He realized that must have been where Mumbo had learned his name from, and decided Mumbo must have been joking a moment ago when he claimed to know everything... At least Banjo thought he was.

The shaman nodded. "Mumbo know Bottles, yes. Mumbo help mole with spells."

"I knew Goggle Boy couldn't do all those magic things!" Kazooie exclaimed. "Ha! Magical mole my tail feathers!"

"Kazooie, Bottles said he did them," Banjo protested. "So he must have."

"Banjo right, mole do some spells, but mole not trained in use of mighty magic. Mole know some magic, but Mumbo true star of show. Mumbo help mole with spells, mole not manage them without Mumbo magic!"

Banjo pulled the five Mumbo Tokens from the backpack and showed them to Mumbo. "You said we should find tokens, do you mean these, Mumbo?" he asked.

Mumbo eyes lit up at the sight of the Tokens. "Ahh…" he said. "Banjo has plenty Tokens. Stand on skull to see mighty Mumbo magic!" He nodded to the skull on the ground that had reminded Banjo of a switch.

"Hey, Bonehead," Kazooie said, sounding suspicious, "what kind of 'mighty Mumbo magic' are we talking about here?'

"Magic that will help Banjo and loud-mouthed one, turn them into different animal, help them reach places they could not as bear and bird."

"Watch who you're calling a loud-mouth!"

"What sort of different animal, Mumbo?" Banjo asked, interested.

"Depend on World Banjo talk to Mumbo in. Mumbo set up hut in many Worlds, help bear beat witch he will."

"Okay," Banjo said gratefully. "Thanks, Mumbo, we could use the help."

"As if we need it!" Kazooie scoffed. "Why do you want to help us anyway?" Kazooie was already annoyed over the fact that Bottles was helping them. She was a proud breegull, and she didn't care to accept help when, in her opinion, she and her partner would do just fine without it- though truth be told she was looking forward to when Bottles taught her to fly. But at least in Bottles' case she knew why he was helping them; the mole was friends with Tooty, and was obviously worried for the little honey bear's sake. But this Mumbo guy had no reason to help them that Kazooie could see.

"Mumbo want to help bear and bird because he has score to settle with witch Gruntilda," Mumbo told them, adamantly shaking his staff and causing it to rattle.

"What did Grunty do to you, Mumbo?" Banjo asked, concerned.

"Mumbo taught witch mighty magic, witch abuse use of spells, must be stopped!"

"You taught Grunty how to do magic?" Banjo repeated astonished.

"Mumbo did," Mumbo said with a nod. "Mumbo witch's teacher was, not know pupil had bad streak. When Mumbo try stop witch from misusing Mumbo magic, witch turn face into skull."

"Did it improve your looks?" Kazooie asked innocently.

"Kazooie!" Banjo exclaimed. "I'm sorry, Mumbo. Is there anything we can do to help?"

"Beat witch Gruntilda, bear help Mumbo then," Mumbo said. "If witch defeated, spell witch put on Mumbo fade away, no more skull."

"So if we beat her, your face will go back to normal?" Banjo asked.

"Bear got it," Mumbo said, nodding. "Mumbo help bear and bird beat ugly witch. Stop witch, Mumbo problem solved and little bear saved. Everybody win."

"Alright, Mumbo," Banjo agreed. "That'll work. So all we have to do is stand on that thing and you'll change us into a different animal?" He pointed toward the skull-shaped button in the middle of the hut.

"Yes, stand on skull, see Mumbo magic at work!"

Banjo glanced around, taking in the four Musical Notes around the room and the strange sign again. He supposed the sign, with its picture of a Mumbo Token and the number five, meant that they needed to bring Mumbo five Tokens for him to change them. Banjo did a quick mental count. Strangely, they had collected exactly five Mumbo Tokens so far. Ignoring the coincidence, Banjo focused on the Notes, again.

"Are these your Notes, Mumbo?" Banjo asked.

"No, Mumbo find Musical Notes in hut, appeared here, not long ago. It strange, but Mumbo used to strange. Bear take Notes if want."

"Thanks, Mumbo!" Banjo said gratefully, and then walked around the hut, gathering up the four Notes. He put them in the backpack with the others for a total of seventy-six, quite close to the one hundred they needed to collect.

Then, slightly nervous at the prospect of Mumbo using magic on them and turning them into something else, Banjo stepped onto the skull-switch that was imbedded in the ground in front of Mumbo's chair. It sank under his feet with an audible _click_, settling to lay level with the ground around it.

"Err… Will this hurt, Mumbo?" Banjo couldn't help asking, shifting his weight from one paw to the other.

"Bear and bird not feel a thing!" Mumbo exclaimed.

"Alright…" he agreed, bracing himself despite Mumbo's reassuring words. "I'm ready."

Banjo's eyes widened in surprise as two bands of colored light- yellow and blue- began to swirl around him and Kazooie. His shock only increased as his paws left the ground and he began to float. The light spun around them, getting closer until the bands almost obscured his vision. Meanwhile, Mumbo rose to his feet and stood on top of his chair. Mumbo put his arms out to either side, still holding the staff, and began speaking a strange chant as he did: "Booga da, booga da, booga _boogada!_"

The last thing Banjo saw was Mumbo waving the staff at them just as he spoke the last syllable of his chant; then Banjo's sight was completely blocked by the bands of yellow and blue light. There was a sound akin to an explosion, and the light burst out in all directions.

When the light cleared and Banjo dropped back to the floor and landed back on the skull-switch, he felt different. His body was much lower to the ground than before, as though he were standing on all fours. And his legs felt… strange. Banjo glanced back at himself, concerned- and nearly fainted at what he saw. He wasn't standing on all fours like he'd thought. No, to stand on all fours would require that he only have four legs, and he had two legs too many for that. Long, white and thin, he had three legs emerging from each side of his body, of his _thorax_- for that was what his torso had become; the pale-pink thorax of a giant termite, the kind he had dubbed Tickers. On his back rested Kazooie's backpack, and near the base of his thorax were his shorts, though he wasn't quite sure how they fit on him now.

Banjo couldn't look at his own head to see what it looked like now, of course, though he wasn't all that inclined to do so at the moment. He was sure that his head was now a copy of the Tickers' heads, the Tickers he'd seen wandering around and in the giant termite mound. The only difference he could see in himself from those termites was that he wore clothes and the fact that he was considerably smaller than he remembered them being. The Tickers he had seen had been larger than him when he was a bear. In this form, he was quite sure he was smaller than he used to be, and so _much_ smaller than the Tickers. But still, there wasn't any doubt in Banjo's mind that he had been turned into a Ticker. His head spun wildly as the realization struck him, again nearly passing out. He held onto consciousness with effort, though he could feel his heart racing in his chest- or whatever you would call the part of a Ticker's body that held its heart.

"Mumbo's magic free to change back, you come when ready," Mumbo told them as Banjo stood frozen before him. He'd sat down again, Banjo noticed vaguely, and was regarding them calmly. He tilted his head at them thoughtfully. "Termite bit small, but not bad for first spell," he added, almost to himself. "Mumbo practice needed!"

"Kazooie!" Banjo gasped as soon as he could remember how to speak, his voice higher-pitched than it should be as it came from his termite mouth. "Are you alright? Did you change, too?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Kazooie said, sticking her head out of the pack. Banjo couldn't help but stare, shocked yet again, at his best friend, the former breegull. She had, in fact, changed form, too, and it was incredibly strange to see this Ticker and know it was Kazooie. But even so, it was still indisputably Kazooie. Her voice had changed in pitch like his had done, but it was recognizably hers, and her eyes were the same shade of green as always, even though her face was now that of a termite's. Those eyes were currently fixed on Mumbo, and looked quite annoyed. "Hey, Skirt Boy!" she said. "What do ya mean 'Not bad for first spell'?"

Realizing Kazooie was right, Banjo turned back to look at Mumbo. "Was that the first time you used that spell, Mumbo?" he asked, a little apprehensive.

"Mumbo use many spells, but never yet termite spell," Mumbo replied. "Like Mumbo said, Mumbo practice needed!"

"I'll say you do!" Kazooie said.

"Giant termite native animal of Mumbo's Mountain," Mumbo said. "Bear and bird blend in now with termites, they fooled by disguise."

"How are we gonna _blend in_ when we're a third their size?" Kazooie snapped.

Mumbo shrugged. "Mumbo magic is what it is."

"This should be useful, even if we are a little small," Banjo said, taking a deep breath. "Is there anything else we can do in this form?"

"Termite feet grip almost anything, so bear can climb steeper surfaces than before."

"Great!" Banjo said. "That means we can climb the ledges in the termite mound, Kazooie!"

"That oughta be fun, climbing around with the termites…" Kazooie rolled her eyes. "Alright, Banjo, let's get going."

"Thanks again, Mumbo," Banjo said, turning to leave.

He stumbled as he turned, finding himself tripping over his new legs. Banjo yelped as he almost fell flat to the ground, but managed to catch himself. He looked back at his six legs again. He always walked on his hind legs, and he only had two of those, so walking with six was going to take some getting used to. He took a few steps, moving only one leg at a time, before risking two at once. His legs made a clicking sound when they made contact with the ground, the same sound that had caused Banjo to dub the giant termites Tickers. Once they'd left the hut and started down the ramp into the grass, Banjo was managing to walk without falling over, though it still felt quite strange.

As they turned away from Mumbo's hut and back toward the giant termite mound, Kazooie burst out, "What a weirdo that guy is!"

"He's not so bad, Kazooie," Banjo said. He privately agreed that Mumbo _was_ a little odd, but he liked the Shaman nonetheless. And Mumbo was more than willing to help them against Gruntilda, which, of course, would help them save Tooty, so that only improved Banjo's opinion of Mumbo.

They headed down the slope that led back to the termite mound. They reached its base, and Banjo was about to about to enter it when he remembered something and paused. The part of the mountain on which they stood was the top of the center section of the mountain, the section whose slope was bare stone that led down to the lake. He remembered that, in the center of that bare stretch of stone, he'd seen an indent; a hollow set in the cliff wall. He suspected that the sheer gray stone would be too much even for Kazooie's Talon Trot to grip… but as a Ticker they just might be able to go down and see if there was anything worth finding in that hollow.

Turning away from the giant termite mound, Banjo headed toward the cliff edge. They walked past a Ticker, though like before, he made sure to keep his distance from the giant insect. These Tickers were much larger than the Ticker Mumbo had turned him into, perhaps three times his size, in fact. He hopped over the small fence that bordered the cliff edge, and landed on the steep slope of brownish-gray stone. He skidded slightly, heart racing, until, to his relief, he found traction. Banjo was now facing downward on a slope that led down at a sharp angle to the lake with the bridge that had held the first Notes they'd collected.

Banjo carefully started down the slope, hearing his feet click much louder than usual against the stone, but not slipping despite the steep incline. The hollow he was headed for was in the exact center of the mountain, both horizontally and vertically, and so when Banjo was halfway down the mountain, he reached the top rim of the hollow.

He skittered sideways and then down, walked alongside the hollow's rim until he was just under the hollow, not far above the lake. He glanced down at the water. He doubted that Tickers could swim, so he decided to keep his distance from where the cliff-side dropped off into the lake. He turned his head back to face the hollow.

He then stepped into the hollow, which, though fairly deep, still didn't go back that far into the cliff. Still, it was large enough to hold the second Extra Honeycomb. Grinning happily, Banjo managed to pick up the Honeycomb in his mouth- he didn't actually have hands in this form- and passed it back to Kazooie to store in the backpack.

With that done, and with two Extra Honeycombs in Kazooie's pack, they left the hollow behind and headed back up the mountainside. He jumped back over the fence onto level ground, and then walked around the termite mound to its entrance. For the second time that day, he stepped inside Ticker's Tower.

He'd walked only a few steps inside when the same Ticker as before, the one who wandered around the mound's bottom level and who had called him ugly when he'd met it as a bear, noticed him again.

"Hey!" it exclaimed. "Where did you get those shorts? I want them!"

"Erm, sorry," Banjo said quickly, edging around the termite toward the ledges they'd tried to climb last time. "I don't think they're your size…"

The Ticker glared at him, annoyed, but turned away.

Letting out a sigh of relief that the giant termite was now ignoring him, Banjo clicked his way up the first ledge. This ledge was easy to stand on, just as it was when he was a bear, since it barely inclined at all. He jumped the gap to the next ledge, the one they'd needed Kazooie's Talon Trot for, and was glad but not surprised when he didn't slip off.

Walking along the ledge, which curved inward with the cylindrical tower, Banjo then made a leap for the third ledge, the one whose steepness had stumped even the Talon Trot.

He landed on the ledge and his feet gripped its surface without slipping in the least. "It works, Kazooie!" Banjo told his friend. "We can get up there!" He supposed he shouldn't be surprised; this tower was built by Tickers for Tickers to live in, and they'd hardly have made it so steep that they couldn't get around in their own home without falling off of ledges. So being a Ticker as well definitely gave him an advantage over his normal bear form in this case.

Banjo jumped over to the next ledge, the one that led up through a gap in the mesh-like floor he had noticed earlier, and from there, stepped out slightly onto the mesh. He tapped a foot on the mesh surface, testing it. It seemed to be made out of green vines, strung together; and it seemed very solid, so he walked fully onto it.

Another giant termite, one he had noticed earlier when he'd peered upward through the mesh floor, wandered around on it, as well. There were six Musical Notes in the center of the mesh, scattered in a circle, and Banjo was about to head over and collect them when the Ticker saw him. Its eyes lit up with interest. "Give me that cool backpack or else!" it threatened, taking a step toward him.

"Whoa!" Banjo exclaimed, mirroring its step and backing up. The last Ticker had wanted his shorts, and now this one wanted Kazooie's backpack? What was going on here? He'd been a Ticker for only a few minutes and he'd started a fashion-craze among the species!

"I… I don't think this backpack would fit you," Banjo said, using the same excuse as last time and hoping it would work again. It probably helped that it was true; his shorts and backpack were way too small for the large Tickers to wear.

The Ticker frowned, eying him as though just realizing the huge size difference. "Humph," it scoffed, irritated. "That's right; you're a shrimp with a shrimpy backpack. No way it'd fit me."

Banjo nodded. "Right," he said, still nervous. "So I'll just collect these, if you don't mind, and be on my way."

He quickly grabbed the six Notes, putting them in the backpack and bringing their Note-count to eight-two, and then headed around the termite to the next upward-sloping ledge.

The next three ledges were incredibly steep, almost vertically sloped, in fact; and the middle one of the three was much smaller than the others. Still, Banjo made it across without too much difficulty. He headed up the third ledge and onto another mesh floor, similar to the one below it. There was a Ticker here, too, and Banjo glanced at it, worried, but thankfully it didn't say anything to him.

There were six blue eggs in the center of this mesh-flooring, and Banjo scooped them up before walking over to yet another ledge. This ledge was a long one that curved for quite a bit, about the length of two of the normal-sized ledges, and it took a few seconds before they reached a gap. Across from them was what looked like the last ledge; it was more of a small platform than anything else. And on that platform-like ledge was a doorway leading out of the tower, high above the ground. Light spilled into the tower from the opening, brightening it where it would otherwise have been pitch-black inside.

Banjo hopped across the gap and onto the platform, peering cautiously through the doorway before he walked through it, in case it opened onto thin air. Thankfully it didn't; he could see stable ground outside the giant termite mound, and so he stepped out onto it, leaving the inside of the mound.

They emerged on a ledge that curved around the outside of the mound, with the ground far below them. Banjo swallowed hard as he looked down. It provided quite a dizzying sight, but a nice one as well. From where he stood, he could see the whole of Mumbo's Mountain with ease, and it was really a beautiful World, despite the fact that goblin-creatures and Conga the ape lived here.

To their right, the ledge curved into the tower and ended, but just where it ended sat an Extra Life. Banjo, being careful not to fall to the ground below them, walked over and picked it up.

To the left of the doorway they'd just come through, the ledge curved around and up the side of the Ticker's mound, and Banjo started along it. He walked around Ticker's Tower for one full revolution, and then stepped onto its very pinnacle.

Banjo looked around. He was at the top of Ticker's Tower, and Ticker's Tower in turn was on top of a tall mountain, so with that combination, Banjo thought that he was higher by far than he'd been on Spiral Mountain's peak.

The top of the termite mound was small and circular, and floating above its center, at the very highest point of Mumbo's Mountain, was another Jiggy.

Thrilled, Banjo sprang into the air and snatched the ninth Jiggy. He couldn't do his Jiggy dance while in termite form, so he just put it in the backpack with the other eight of its kind. But he did smile pretty broadly.

Banjo glanced around, deciding where to go next. From this vantage point, he could see the hill that led down from the area on which Mumbo's hut was placed, and guessed that there were likely more items on the ledges that lined that hill. So that would be his next destination. Well, after he and Kazooie stopped at Mumbo's to be turned back to normal, anyway.

That destination decided, Banjo started the trip back down Ticker's Tower, heading back inside and retracing his steps down the ledges. The trip didn't take long, and soon he was stepping out of the termite mound at ground level.

Relieved to be out of the termite's lair again, Banjo walked up the grassy slope that lay ahead of them and back into the area with Mumbo's hut. He crossed the area, and went back into the Shaman's hut.

When he walked back into the small room, Banjo was greeted by the sound of snoring and saw that Mumbo had drifted back off to sleep in the short time they had been gone.

"A little lazy, isn't he?" Kazooie commented, poking her termite head out of the pack.

Banjo frowned at Kazooie, but didn't respond, figuring there wasn't much he could say. He clicked forward a few steps. "Mumbo?" he said. "Sorry to wake you, again."

Like before, Mumbo jerked awake with a groan, and he shook his head to wake himself. "Ah, Banjo back," Mumbo said. "What can Mumbo help with?"

"We want to change back to normal now, Mumbo," Banjo explained. "We went to the top of the termite's tower. Being a termite was really useful."

Mumbo looked proud. "Termite spell good spell." He nodded. "Want change back already? Stand on skull and Mumbo return you to furry bear and feathered bird."

"Got it, Mumbo," Banjo said, smiling. He stepped onto the skull-shaped switch and looked at Mumbo expectantly.

Like before, swirls of yellow and blue light spun around the duo as Mumbo began the spell, and Banjo's paws left the ground as he began to levitate again. Mumbo got to his feet on his chair, lifting his arms to even with his sides, and the chant he spoke was the same as last time, too; "Booga da, booga da, booga _boogada!_" With a swing of Mumbo's magical staff and a blast of magic, Banjo dropped back to the ground as his old self, Banjo the honey bear.

Banjo stretched his arms above his head, strangely glad and relieved to have arms, and only two legs, again. And he had opposable thumbs, again, which he was quite happy about. It had been difficult to grab things in his mouth.

"Hey, Kazooie, are you back to normal, too?" Banjo asked, still happily stretching.

She stuck her head out of the backpack, which was the head of a red-crested breegull once again. "I sure am!" she exclaimed. She flapped her scarlet and gold wings hard enough to buffet Banjo with air and let out a loud squawk as though testing to make sure her breegull voice-box was intact. "_Much_ better than being a termite!"

"Thanks for the help, Mumbo," Banjo said. "We found some Notes and a Jiggy thanks to your spell."

"Mumbo glad to help," the Shaman said. "Bear need all help he can get in fight against witch Gruntilda."

"I sure do," Banjo agreed. He thought, though, that he and Kazooie had some pretty good backup in Bottles and Mumbo. "We'd better go find the last few items now."

"Come back when need Mumbo magic again," Mumbo told them.

Banjo nodded. "See you later, Mumbo!" With a wave, Banjo turned and headed out of the hut.

The only part of Mumbo's Mountain they had yet to explore was the hill that lay across the way from them, sloping from the area where Mumbo's hut was down to the area he and Kazooie had first appeared in, where the Exit Pad was placed.

Banjo ran over to the top of the hill and glanced down it. There were seven ledges on this hill, and six of them held Musical Notes; the seventh one, which was right in the middle of the hill, had a Jiggy floating just above it. This hill was about as steep as the one below the Stonehenge-like structure.

"We'll need the Talon Trot, again," Banjo noticed. "Ready, Kazooie?"

"As ready as I'll ever be to carry a bear around on my back."

Banjo crouched down and Kazooie's talons touched the ground. She stood, allowing Banjo to rest on her back, and then turned to face the hill. She started down it toward the rightmost ledge, which had three Notes on it.

From there, Kazooie moved to the next ledge, a little below them and to the left, collecting three more Notes and causing their Note-count to become ninety-one. The next ledge brought them to ninety-four, and the one after that ninety-seven. By the time Kazooie reached the last Note-holding ledge, they had neared the top of the hill again, and on that ledge, they collected the last three Musical Notes of Mumbo's Mountain.

"We did it, Kazooie!" Banjo cheered.

Bottles voice spoke at almost the same time Banjo did, his tone as happy as the bear's, "You've found all 100 Notes on this World, well done!"

"Thanks, Bottles!" Banjo called. "We did it, Kazooie!" he repeated happily.

"And about time, too!" Kazooie said with a grin on her beak.

"Let's hurry and get the last Jiggy," Banjo said.

Kazooie turned on a talon and darted over to the last hill, stepping onto it and stopping underneath the Jiggy. Once there, she pulled herself back into the backpack, letting Banjo stand, and the honey bear leapt up into the air, grabbing the Jiggy in his paw.

Banjo launched into his Jiggy dance, thrilled, and at the end of it, Kazooie snatched the Jiggy from him and put it in the backpack as had become routine.

Even though the Jiggy was put away and his Jiggy dance was finished, Banjo hadn't yet worked off all of his happy energy. As far as he could tell, they were just about done with Mumbo's Mountain, with meant they were one step closer to saving his little sister! Unable to contain his joy, Banjo launched into another dance, picking his feet up and waving his arms slightly as Kazooie came out of the backpack for a moment with an energetic squawk of her own. The second dance done, Banjo couldn't resist adding a double bow, first to his right, then to his left, feeling proud of himself and of Kazooie for the fact that they had made it as far as they had.

Kazooie, who had pulled back into the pack when Banjo had started to bow so she wouldn't tumble out of it, stuck her head back out. "Hey, Banjo, when you first did that dance of yours, didn't I ask you to keep it simple?" she asked, amused.

"I think you did," Banjo admitted. "But I couldn't help it. Besides, you seemed pretty happy yourself for a moment, there."

"Yeah, well, I didn't dance and then bow!" Kazooie said, sounding as though she were trying not to laugh. "Well, at least it was entertaining…"

"Gee, thanks," Banjo replied with a grin. "I think we're about ready to leave this World, Kazooie," he added. He turned to head down the mountain, figuring he would just slide down it without asking Kazooie to use the Talon Trot again.

"Hey, don't forget that switch with the hag's face on it!" Kazooie squawked. "You know, the one near the crazy ape?"

"Oh, right, the Grunty Switch!" Banjo exclaimed. He'd forgotten about it, but he supposed they should head over there one more time. With Kazooie's new Beak Buster move, they could activate the Grunty Switch. Hadn't Bottles said that pressing a Grunty Switch would make a Jiggy appear somewhere in Gruntilda's Lair?

Banjo jumped off of the ledge and onto the hill. Like he'd expected they would, his paws slid out from under him on the steep slope, and Banjo fell into a sitting position, skidding down the hill on the seat of his shorts. It was a rough slide, since every few feet he'd hit a small bump and get thrown into the air a little, but when Banjo slid to a stop at the bottom of the hill, he was grinning. That was fun!

Getting back to his paws, Banjo headed to his left, over to the lake, and crossed the bridge back to the section of Mumbo's Mountain where Bigbutt the bull lived. Bigbutt was grazing near the valley wall, his back to Banjo. Banjo snuck past the bull, keeping a safe distance and a wary eye on Bigbutt's massive horns. Thankfully, though the bull let out a low moo and wandered to a new patch of grass, Bigbutt didn't look up and Banjo got past him without any trouble.

From there, he continued down to where Conga's orange tree was. Banjo looked up in alarm as Conga screeched, the giant ape glaring at the sight of him. "Why bear come back?" Conga demanded. "Conga said this Conga's tree! Me hit bear with more oranges!"

"Hey, Sharp-Shooter!" Kazooie yelled. "You tried that last time, remember? You couldn't even touch us!"

"We're just passing through, Conga!" Banjo called hastily. "We won't come near your tree!"

"Ha! Conga not stupid!" the ape scoffed. "Bear try to trick Conga, but Conga not fall for it!"

"You're really too smart for us," Kazooie said sarcastically.

Banjo jumped to the side as an orange flew at them. The citrus slammed against the ground with a splat, and Banjo sighed, resigned. Banjo zigzagged past Conga's tree, avoiding the oranges the ape pelted at them, and was soon out of range.

Entering the small hollow just past Conga's tree, Banjo ran up to the now-raised stump where he'd met Chimpy and sprang on top of it. Then, with Kazooie's help, he used the Flapflip to land on top of the wooden, mossy structure placed behind Conga's tree.

Now on top of the structure, Banjo walked to the left, over to the three ledges that led up to the ledge that held the Grunty Switch. He jumped from one ledge to the next until he landed next to the switch, and shivered once again at the picture it bore; Gruntilda the witch, her mouth open wide in a grin that showed four teeth, one of her bulbous eyes narrowed, the other wide-open, limp black hair hanging around her green-skinned face, and her black witch's hat and pink and purple scarf. The picture wasn't any more pleasant to look at now than it had been last time.

"So we just use the Beak Buster on this switch?" Banjo wondered aloud.

"This'll be fun!" Kazooie exclaimed. "Too bad it's not the real thing, but at least it looks like her!"

"Right," Banjo agreed. He stepped onto the Grunty Switch, leapt into the air, twisted until he was upside down, and then Kazooie's beak slammed against the switch, pressing it to the ground with a thud.

As Banjo flipped back over to land on his feet, a screen, like one you might watch movies on, seemed to grow out of the ground just in front of him, right behind the switch and against the valley wall. Banjo yelped in shock, staggering backward and almost falling off the ledge. The screen was slightly bigger than Banjo, and he and Kazooie watched as the screen flickered and a picture appeared on it. The screen showed the outside of Mumbo's Mountain; or rather, the gray mountain with the opening that had served as the entry-way to the World, the entry-way they had opened by putting the first Jiggy they had found into the giant picture of Mumbo's Mountain.

The top of the gray mountain entry-way was a flat, grassy surface, and, with a bang and a flash of golden light, a Jiggy flashed into existence on top of it.

And then the screen's picture dimmed and disappeared, and the screen itself flashed out of existence, as though it had never been there.

"What just happened, Kazooie?" Banjo asked blankly.

"Something weird, as usual for this place," Kazooie responded.

Bottles' voice spoke. "To state the obvious, that screen appeared because you activated the Grunty Switch," he explained. "Like I said earlier, Grunty hid several Jiggies around her lair, and placed Grunty Switches in the Worlds that, when pressed, would allow her to reach the Jiggies she'd hidden in case she wanted to get a hold of them again. The screen showed you where the Jiggy connected to this particular switch appeared."

"So Grunty put the screen here to show her where the Jiggy appeared?" Banjo asked.

"No, not Grunty," Bottles said. "Gruntilda knows where the Jiggies will appear, so she doesn't need the screens. Mumbo and I installed them, actually, so that you would be able to find the Jiggies. We connected a screen to each of the Grunty Switches, so whenever you find and press one, you can see where the Jiggy shows up."

"You and Mumbo did this?" Banjo repeated, surprised.

"Well, I was actually the one who made the screens," Bottles said. "Mumbo used his magic to connect the screens to the Grunty Switches, and used another spell to hide the screens from the witch."

"That's great!" Banjo exclaimed. "Thanks a lot, Bottles! You and Mumbo are sure helping us a lot."

"Hey!" Kazooie squawked before Bottles could answer Banjo. "If you know where the Jiggies are, why don't you collect them yourself? Why do we have to do it?"

"Well, Feather Brain, I would collect the Jiggies, but I don't actually know where the Jiggies will appear," Bottles corrected. "Neither does Mumbo."

"But, if you made the screens that show where the Jiggies will appear, how can you not know where the Jiggies are?" Banjo asked, bewildered.

"It's hard to explain…" Bottles said. "The screens are made so that they themselves actually detect where the Jiggies will appear. So even though I don't know where the Jiggies are, the screens will still show them where they will appear."

"I… don't really get it," Banjo admitted.

"To be honest, neither do I," Bottles said. "They do work that way, however. And so, thanks to those screens, whenever you press a Grunty Switch, you'll be able to see where the corresponding Jiggy appears."

"This Jiggy appeared outside this World, on top of the mountain entrance, right, Bottles?" Banjo asked.

"That's right. You'll need to be in Ticker form to get to it, though. The mountain is too steep to climb otherwise."

"Oh, alright, Bottles," Banjo said. "Thanks, again!"

Knowing it was time to visit Mumbo again, Banjo turned away from the Grunty Switch and jumped back down to the ground. He made short work of the journey back to Mumbo's hut, dodging Conga's oranges, Bigbutt the bull, and heading up the mountain slope, where he hurried past the Tickers and their termite mound. Now at Mumbo's hut again, Banjo walked inside. Once he and Kazooie were transformed back into termites, he turned and clicked back out of the hut. He was able to walk easily in termite form now, having gotten used to the extra number of legs he had to work with.

"Ready to leave Mumbo's Mountain, Kazooie?" Banjo asked his friend.

"More than ready!" Kazooie squawked. "Let's get out of here already!"

Banjo nodded and headed down the slope across from Mumbo's hut, stepping back into the area with the Exit Pad. He then headed up the tiled hill and stopped in front of the Exit Pad, looking down at it. He still found it weird that the pad had his and Kazooie's faces inscribed on it- weird, but also rather flattering.

"So I just step onto it, right?" Banjo asked.

"That's what Dirt Muncher said," Kazooie replied.

Banjo nodded again. "Alright, here goes," he said, clicking onto the Exit Pad. Like when he had entered Mumbo's Mountain, there was a flare of light that sparkled around him, seeming to come from his body as the Exit Pad worked its magic, and Mumbo's Mountain vanished from sight.

**Well, that's it for the longest chapter I've ever written- so far, at least. Originally, I planned to change anything in the game that broke the forth wall so that it **_**didn't**_** break the forth wall, but then I realized that I couldn't really do that and still write a Banjo-Kazooie novelization. At the moment, Banjo and Kazooie don't know that they're in a game, though some of the other characters, like Mumbo, do. So I'm going to keep the forth wall breaking quality of the game after all. **

**The screen they watched the Jiggy appear on was the only way I could think of to make it possible for them to see the cut-scenes that tell us where to look next while we're playing, so I hope the idea worked well and made sense.**

**The basic idea of Mumbo having a hand in the spells Bottles used is Cyberkidx's idea, though I tweaked it a bit. Credit and thanks go to Cyberkidx for that. I hope this chapter was a good one, and please leave a review if you feel like it. Whenever I get a review, I can't stop grinning for the next hour.**


	6. Author's Note

**This story was once on hiatus because I had serious concerns that I could do it justice without making it repetitive. I believe I've overcome those issues, and now I fully intend to continue it to the end of the game. Thank you to those who encouraged me to go on. I'm in it to the end, and I hope you enjoy the new chapter.**


	7. Grunty's Lair, Her Sister is There

**Hi everyone! I'm back to writing this story after a hiatus. I wasn't originally planning to continue this story, but it just kept bothering me that I'd left it undone. So here I am, writing it again. I'm sorry about the long pause, but I'm back for good now. I can't promise the chapters will come quickly. This is set to be a very long story, with long chapters that will take a long time. But I will do all I can to make each chapter interesting, and I'll write them as quickly as I can manage. Please leave a review and let me know what you think.**

**So here's the next chapter in the continued Banjo-Kazooie: The Novel!**

Before Banjo knew it, he was walking out of the entrance way to Mumbo's Mountain World, and out into the witch's lair again.

As soon as he stepped out into the cavernous stone cave with the tips of his Ticker legs clicking sharply against the stone floor, he heard Bottles speak, "Grunty's magic stops you taking the Notes off the World, but the 100 you just collected counts as your best Note Score. Try to get 100 on each World, as they are needed to open the Note Doors!"

Banjo again noted the use of the word 'Note Doors'. He'd heard that term several times now. But he was more interested in the first part of what Bottles had said. "We don't have the Notes anymore?" he asked, surprised and dismayed. He glanced back at Kazooie's backpack, trying to determine whether it felt lighter than it had a moment ago. If one hundred Musical Notes had just vanished from the pack, then surely it would, but he couldn't feel any difference in its weight.

Kazooie, with her head still inside the backpack, called, "Nope, no sign of them! They must have disappeared when we came back into the hag's lair!"

Banjo frowned, hoping that all their work in collecting the Musical Notes hadn't gone to waste. "Bottles, what do you mean about our best Note Score?" he asked. "What's that?"

"Your Note Score is the total amount of Notes you've collected in all the different Worlds you'll be visiting. Though you can't take the Notes you find in the Worlds back into the lair with you, your Note Score will have an effect on your journey."

"What sort of effect?" Banjo asked, curious.

"You'll see soon enough," Bottles' voice said. "I'll tell you when you get to the first Note Door."

Banjo nodded with a slight sigh, though he supposed he should be getting used to Bottles being mysterious. "Alright, Bottles."

"See you then!" Bottles exclaimed, and then said no more.

"That mole is driving me crazy, Banjo!" Kazooie exclaimed as she stuck her head out of the backpack. Like Banjo, she was still a Ticker, and at the moment, a thoroughly annoyed one. Her green eyes were narrowed with frustration. "He could just tell us what he's talking about now, but he doesn't! Ever!"

"He must have his reasons, Kazooie," Banjo said.

"Yeah, like being annoying!" Kazooie sighed shortly. "Sheesh... Well, lets grab that Jiggy up there so we can get back to normal." She jerked her head upward, toward the Jiggy that lay on the mountain's tip above the entrance to Mumbo's Mountain. "I don't like being a bug."

"But what if we need the magic in the next World? We don't even know what its going to be like there," Banjo pointed out.

"Bonehead said that he set up shop in a bunch of the Worlds, remember?" Kazooie said.

"Oh, right!" Banjo said. He'd almost forgotten that. He paused for a moment, thinking. He was sure that the following Worlds were going to be tough. He was willing to bet they'd be harder than Mumbo's Mountain was; surely Grunty would see to that. But if Mumbo said he'd help them with transformations in some of the later Worlds as well, then that made Banjo feel a lot better about the whole thing. "We'll have to trust Mumbo, then. I'm sure he won't let us down."

Kazooie rolled her eyes and repressed a long-suffering sigh. Did Banjo really have to put so much trust in someone they'd met not even an hour ago? Banjo sometimes took blind trust to a whole new level, which just wasn't Kazooie's style. She had to admit that Skirt Boy's spell had been useful, but he was _really_ weird... "Right."

Banjo moved a few steps forward, away from Mumbo's Mountain's entrance; but he'd only moved a short distance when he froze in surprise as he saw something move. He'd thought that he and Kazooie were alone in this circular room, the one just outside Mumbo's Mountain and so near to the entrance of the lair itself. Well, alone aside from Bottles' disembodied voice- but he'd been wrong. A Ticker, giant and pale pink with massive, angry-looking yellow eyes, just like the ones in the World they had just left, was clicking its way around the room, wandering around at random. Last time they'd been in this area, there had been no one there.

Banjo watched the Ticker with vague alarm, unsure how it had gotten there and all-too-willing to keep his distance from the massive termite thing. "Kazooie, there's a Ticker out here," he said uneasily.

"Huh?" Kazooie, who had withdrawn into the backpack, looked out of it again. "Oh, great. As if there weren't enough of those things around already." The Ticker walked by them- much too close by them for Banjo's comfort- and Kazooie, her tone annoyed, squawked, "Beat it, Bug Boy!"

The Ticker ignored them and wandered on past.

Banjo was just about to ask Kazooie what she thought the Ticker was doing out here, when, once again, he heard a voice issuing from thin air- but not Bottles' this time; "When you open a World door, baddies escape and roam once more!"

Banjo froze once again, looking around at the unmistakable voice of Gruntilda, horribly recognizable even if she hadn't been spouting her signature rhymes.

"Did she just call them 'baddies'?" Kazooie questioned, her words breaking off into a snigger. "Well, that'll scare everyone out of their minds, won't it?"

"Err..." Banjo said, still looking fruitlessly around for Grunty even though he knew she wasn't really in the room with them, that she must just be projecting her voice somehow. Looking around for the source of a disembodied voice was getting to be second-nature to him. "Well, I guess that explains why the Ticker is here. It must have come out of Mumbo's Mountain while we were in there."

Kazooie shrugged, still seeming amused by Grunty's phrasing. "Guess so," she said dismissively. "Now come on, let's get that Jiggy! I want to get this done already so we can get at whack at the Rhyming Wonder."

Banjo nodded, shooting one last nervous look at the Ticker. "Right... Okay, Kazooie," he agreed.

Banjo turned around to face Mumbo's Mountain's entrance and started his way up the sheer gray stone surface of the mountain toward the Jiggy he knew to be perched at the top.

Sure enough, when Banjo reached the top of the gray mountain, the tip of which was flat and covered in a patch of grass, there it was; the glittering golden jigsaw piece that had appeared when they'd hit the Grunty Switch back in Mumbo's Mountain World.

With a grin, Banjo picked it up, holding it in his mouth like he had with the last Jiggy he'd found as a Ticker- having no hands with which to hold it in this form- and passed it back to Kazooie to deposit in her backpack. That brought their total Jiggy count up to eleven, not counting the first one they'd found, the one they'd placed in the Mumbo's Mountain picture to open the World.

"Alright, lets go ask Mumbo to change us back to normal now," Banjo said, clicking his way back down the gray mountain and, once on the ground, turned back to the entrance way to Mumbo's Mountain.

He walked through the doorway. Like the first time, at first there was only darkness surrounding them, darkness so black it was impossible to see anything; then the sudden flare of light from before sparkled around them once again, dazzlingly bright, and Banjo closed his eyes, tensing automatically, as the world around him vanished from sight.

When he opened his eyes again, he and Kazooie were on the Exit Pad in Mumbo's Mountain, the World looking just as it had when they'd left it. Casting a quick looking around, Banjo headed straight forward across the field, toward the first section of mountain, the green grass covered section that led up toward the part of the World where Mumbo's hut was located. Once at the mountain's base, he started scaling it, easily climbing up the slippery slope while in Ticker form. He'd never have been able to climb the steep surface as a bear.

Once at the top, Mumbo's skull-shaped hut lay just ahead of them, and Banjo wasted no time in walking across, up the wooden ramp that led to the platform Mumbo's hut rested on, and entering it.

Banjo heard snoring as he walked into the hut, and blinked in surprise as he saw Mumbo was once again sprawled in his chair with his eyes closed. He head was tilted at an awkward looking angle, and his jaw opened and shut with every loud snore that petered off into a whistle before building back in volume. His staff still hung from his hand, clutched limply in his grip even in sleep.

"Sheesh, how much can this guy sleep?" Kazooie wondered. As Banjo stepped more fully into the room, she raised her voice and called, "Hey, Lazy Bones, wake up already!"

At Kazooie's strident squawk, Mumbo jerked awake with a groan, shaking his head. Banjo sent a disapproving look back at Kazooie, planning to say something about her rude awaking of their new friend, but Mumbo spoke before he could. "Ah, bear and bird back again," the skull-headed Shaman said, stifling a yawn. He pushed himself into a more upright position in his chair as he woke up fully. "What bear want from Mumbo?"

"Can you change us back again, Mumbo?" Banjo asked.

"Step on skull, Mumbo change back, quick as Banjo can blink," Mumbo said confidently.

"Thanks, Mumbo!" Banjo exclaimed, hurrying onto the skull-shaped switch. Mumbo stood up on his chair and raised his staff, and with the now familiar chant of "Booga da, booga da, booga b_oogada!_" and the usual light-show, Banjo and Kazooie were back to their normal honey bear and red-crested breegull forms.

"Oh, it's about time!" Kazooie exclaimed, popping her head out of the backpack, once again covered in smooth scarlet and golden feathers and clacking her beak as though adjusting back to her usual body.

Banjo let out a sigh of relief to be back on two legs and stretched his arms above his head, shrugged the backpack on his back into a more comfortable position, and then gave himself a brief shake. "Thanks again, Mumbo," he said brightly to the Shaman.

"Is no trouble," Mumbo said, and gave his staff a rattle. "Mighty Mumbo magic is what Mumbo does, glad to help bear he is."

Banjo smiled gratefully. "We'll see you again in Worlds later on, right?" he asked.

"Mumbo not put hut in all Worlds, but Banjo will meet Mumbo in many of them. Mumbo help more then."

Banjo nodded. "Okay, Mumbo. We'll see you soon, then!"

With a wave goodbye, Banjo turned and headed back out of Mumbo's hut, and from there he slid back down the mountainside's slope, riding it like he would a slide, and then, once again at the foot of the mountain, ran across the field and up to the Exit Pad. He stepped up onto the pad and stood on the picture of Kazooie and himself emblazoned on the metal pad. Then Mumbo's Mountain disappeared around them.

Materializing once more back in Gruntilda's Lair, Banjo stepped out of the entrance to Mumbo's Mountain and into the cave. The Ticker he'd spotted earlier was still walking around nearby, but Banjo tried to ignore it. As gigantic and creepy as it was, it was, after all, ignoring them.

"Ready to go deeper into the lair, Kazooie?" Banjo asked his friend.

"More than ready!" Kazooie announced. "There'd better be a challenge somewhere around here. So far it's been way too easy!"

Banjo sighed. "I like easy... and it's safe."

"Easy is _boring,_ Banjo, and don't get me started on safety. Where's the fun in that?"

Banjo shrugged. He would never agree with Kazooie's love for adventure and danger, but that didn't mean he couldn't handle it when necessary. As long as his little sister needed his help, Banjo would go anywhere, no matter the danger. "Alright, let's go."

He and Kazooie headed back through the tunnel that led to the lair's entrance room. Once there, Banjo walked past the giant incredibly hideous portrait of Grunty that hung on the wall opposite the lair's entrance, and headed toward that slope he had noticed earlier, before the two of them had first entered Mumbo's Mountain. The slope was the steep one that was just across and to the left from the lair's entrance way, and Banjo guessed that, with the help of Kazooie's Talon Trot, they would now be able to climb it.

Sure enough, though it was far too sharply slanted for Banjo to climb using his own two paws, Kazooie's talons allowed them to make their way easily up the hill. The slope led upward in a small trench of sorts, and the ceiling rose away above them as they climbed. It wasn't a terribly long slope, and soon Banjo and Kazooie reached its end and were standing on flat ground again.

Kazooie glanced around, still using the Talon Trot, and then retreated into her backpack so Banjo could stand. She poked her head back out of the pack as Banjo turned and looked around their new location.

The slope they'd just climbed had led them to a very small circular room- far too small to really be called a room, actually... perhaps antechamber. There were a couple of wooden torches set high on the rough-hew stone walls to either side, their kindling tips lit with flames that crackled and leapt and brightened the room where it would otherwise be pitch-black. The only things of interest was a door directly across from Banjo, an animated beehive like the one they'd seen in Mumbo's Mountain along the left wall, and placed just to the right of the door was one of Bottles' molehills.

Banjo focused on the door first, intrigued by its appearance. The door itself was fairly plain; made of wooden vertically placed boards and shaped so that its top was rounded. Many doors were made the same way. It was what was written on the door that got Banjo's attention. In bright golden writing that seemed to shimmer and move on the door's surface were the numbers 5 and 0, forming the number fifty in large, bold lettering; lettering that, even with Banjo's limited understanding of the concept, was clearly magical in nature. The biggest tip off to that was that the number written on the door shifted continuously into the shape of a Musical Note, inscribed on the door and much bigger than the ones Banjo had collected, and then back into the number fifty.

"What's up with that door?" Kazooie wondered, voicing Banjo's thoughts.

In obvious answer, Bottles chose that moment to burrow up out of his molehill, pulling himself up to stand on top of it. He straightened his glasses and dusted dirt off of his red and orange jacket while Banjo walked over to stand in front of him.

"This is a Note Door, sealed by Grunty with one of her powerful musical spells," Bottles told them.

Banjo glanced at the door again in surprise. So that was a Note Door! He'd certainly heard about it enough by now that he'd been wondering what it was. It was blocking their way into the deeper parts of the lair, so they needed to get past it.

Banjo looked back at Bottles as Kazooie spoke. "Open it up then, Jam Jars!" she prompted, jerking her head toward the door as she did.

Bottles frowned. "It's not that simple," he said somewhat sharply. "To open it, you must collect the Musical Notes from the Worlds."

"How many do we need?" Banjo asked.

"The number on the door is the strength of the spell," Bottles explained, pointing at the Note Door. "The combined total of all your best Note Scores from the Worlds must be at least this to break Grunty's magic."

"Alright," Banjo said. "I guess that makes sense..." He shrugged, a little confused. Maybe the Notes somehow interacted with the magic of the Note Doors as makeshift keys? That must mean that the Notes themselves were somehow magical in nature, he supposed... Banjo decided he wouldn't dwell on the mechanics of it. "Well, it says fifty, and we collected one hundred Notes in Mumbo's Mountain."

Bottles nodded in confirmation. "That's right. So just walk up to the door, and it should open. You'll likely encounter more Note Doors later on in your adventure, so be sure to keep collecting as many Musical Notes as you can find in each World. I'm sure you'll need them, and the Jiggies as well. I'll see you both later! Good luck!" He dove back into his molehill, kicking dirt up into the air.

Banjo shook away some dirt that had been flung onto his head, ruffled his ears with a paw to get the last of it off, and then stepped toward the Note Door. As soon as he was standing just before it, the door literally disappeared in front of him with a sparkle of light and sound. The door turned into... well, _dissipated_ into, small balls of golden light that zoomed straight up into the air and melted into the ceiling, and it left an empty tunnel entrance where the door had stood seconds before.

Delighted both by the way it had vanished and by the fact that their way into the depths of the lair was now cleared, Banjo couldn't help but launch himself into the dance that he had, up to that point, reserved for when he collected a Jiggy- complete with a double bow at the end, the part of the dance he'd added on when he'd collected the last Jiggy in Mumbo's Mountain. As he preformed the simple dance with a wide grin, Banjo noticed out of the corner of his eyes that Kazooie had gotten into the act as well, waving her wings with a grin as big as Banjo's.

When his dance and the subsequent double bows were done, Banjo straightened up, still grinning widely.

"Let me guess, you're gonna be doing that dance now whenever we open a Note Door, too, aren't ya?" Kazooie asked, her head tilted as she studied him.

Banjo nodded energetically. "Yup!"

Kazooie gave her eyes a half-hearted roll, though she was still smiling, and her next words were said lightly. "You are one weird bear sometimes, Banjo."

Banjo's only response to that was a shrug and a cocky nod- he couldn't really argue with the truth.

Still energized, he turned and went through the tunnel that had been formerly blocked by the Note Door. The tunnel was dark, and for a second he was blind as he walked along, going deeper into it. But before he could start to worry, he'd stepped out into light again and into a new room in the lair.

This room was so massive, so much bigger even than the Lair's entrance room, that for a moment Banjo could only stare around in amazement.

The room was cavern-like and circular, with a wide open space far ahead and to either side of the door Banjo and Kazooie had just come through. The stone walls were carved into ridges that formed designs, and were mostly brownish red, with some gold undertones. The expansive floor was a dull, standard gray.

The first thing that caught Banjo's eye, aside from the size of the room, was what was set in its center. There was a raised area of ground, like a dais, tiered above the rest of the floor. And unlike the floor around it, it wasn't made of gray stone. Banjo could see from here that it was a massive circular portrait, set into the ground and made of stones that had been fused together and colored into the image of a person; a portrait of- who else?- Gruntilda, her insane yellow eyes wide, her mouth open in a gruesome grin. A light fixture was set in the ceiling directly above the stonework picture, giving off a beam of greenish light that fell down onto the picture of Grunty and highlighted it like a spotlight.

Banjo was beginning to get the vague impression that Grunty had a somewhat swelled ego.

Leading up from the top of the Gruntilda picture, raising from the floor at the center of the room, was a thin green... bridge, Banjo supposed. It led upward from the picture to a doorway set high in the wall. The green bridge created a path to the otherwise inaccessible doorway.

As he continued to look around the room, Banjo felt a jolt of surprise- and alarm- when he saw there was something else in the room; something living that was walking around near the other side of the room, a good distance from where they stood. It looked to Banjo like an ape of some kind, though a very strange, very menacing one. It had no fur that Banjo could see; instead, it was wearing a rich reddish-brown cloak that covered most of its body. Only its paws, hands, chest, and face were uncovered, revealing the creature's bare sickly greenish-yellow skin to be seen on the rest of its body. The cloak also had a hood that covered the back and top of its head.

And as for its face... what a face it was! Banjo swallowed nervously as he took in its massive jutting bottom jaw, bulging out quite far from the rest of its face. Sticking out of that jaw were three teeth; crooked set, and square in shape. Above its blunt muzzle, it had large eyes, and like most of the creatures Banjo had seen so far today, its eyes didn't do much to make it look friendly, narrowed and mean-looking as they were.

Banjo was relieved when the creature turned its back to him and Kazooie and lumbered farther away without spotting the new arrivals, though he wasn't all that comforted when he saw the symbol on the back of the creature's cloak. A large orange-red skull was sown into the cloak's design.

Banjo thought it was probably safe to assume that this particular creature would consider Banjo and Kazooie to be his enemies. He quickly tore his gaze from it to inspect the rest of the room.

Off to the right side of the curved room, Banjo could see an alcove set in the wall, and in that alcove he could see what looked to be another painting with missing pieces similar to the Mumbo's Mountain painting they had filled in earlier. The ground in front of the painting seemed to be covered in yellow sand that rested on top of the stone floor. That was a little strange, but from what Banjo could see, the painting on the wall above the sand-covered floor depicted a beach-like scene. He shrugged, guessing it went with the theme.

In front of that painting was a Jiggy podium for him to stand on to place the Jiggies into the picture, which, like with the last painting, would then open the entrance to whatever World that picture depicted.

Almost directly across from where they'd entered, way on the other side of the room, was what looked to Banjo to be a ledge. It was up high in the wall, and on that ledge he could just see what looked like yet another alcove with another painting with missing pieces depicting a different World. From here, though, he couldn't see any details of what that World might look like. He knew he'd have to get up there at some point, though he wasn't sure how he'd be able to reach it. It didn't look like there was a path leading up to the picture. He supposed he'd have to figure out a way when he got there.

Finally, the last thing Banjo could see in the room was another doorway set off to their left. It was more an open hole in the wall, and from what he could see, it led to a lit tunnel that sloped downward and out of sight.

It only took him a moment to take all of this in as he glanced around the room, and he started as he heard Gruntilda's voice echoing around them; "That door was easy you got past," she said, obviously talking about the Note Door Banjo and his partner had just cleared, "unfortunately your first and last!"

Grunty laughed one again, harsh and sharp and as nerve-wrecking as ever, the sound causing Banjo to tense in a jolt of fear. As the sound faded, he let out a slow breath. There was just something very unnerving about Gruntilda's laugh... And honestly, was she watching every move they made? That was beyond creepy.

Shaking off his unease as best he could, Banjo gave the room another glance around, deciding where to head first. His choice made, Banjo headed off to the right in the direction of that painting that depicted the beach-like scene, figuring that was as good a place to check out first as any.

As he began to walk he was startled when something suddenly appeared out of thin air, materializing right next to him, between him and the wall on his right. No, it wasn't something; it was _somebody!_

Letting out a yelp, Banjo stumbled a step before he regained his balance. Then he whipped around, and backed away a few steps, his heart thumping.

Someone stood just in front of the wall, not far from Banjo- but was she a witch... or a fairy godmother?

The person who had just appeared in front of Banjo was quite a bit taller than he was. His head came up perhaps to the top of her stomach, and he could see that she was somewhat stout. Over her slightly pudgy frame she wore a lacy pink dress with short white sleeves, pink shoes that called to mind a ballerina, and yes, unless Banjo was hallucinating (which he wasn't ruling out at this point), the shoes and the person who wore them were floating several inches off of the ground.

In her right hand, this lady gripped what Banjo could only conclude was a magical wand. It was a thin rod that had a star at its tip. The star had sparkles of golden light flowing from it as the woman waved it gently and absentmindedly through the air. Both the wand's stem and tip were golden as well. Behind the lady's back fluttered clear wings, so light a blue that they were transparent and shaped like the wings of a housefly, though much bigger than those of one. That explained how she was floating, Banjo supposed.

The lady had golden hair neatly done up in a librarian's bun, on which she wore a golden tiara. And- furthering the librarian image- she wore very thin wire-rimmed glasses over her bright blue eyes, eyes that were fixed on Banjo. Her face was chubby but looked kind, and though it looked as though she was somewhat along in age, her intelligent eyes danced with energy. Everything about her absolutely screamed 'Magical Fairy Godmother'... except for the small fact that her skin was a pale green.

"K-Kazooie!" Banjo exclaimed in shock, as he registered all this. "Look!"

The breegull poked her head of the backpack. She let out a surprised squawk as she saw the stranger and took in her odd appearance. "Who the bird-seed are you?" she asked, bewildered.

It wasn't Grunty, despite her green skin. Banjo had seen enough pictures of the hag to be sure of that. Grunty's face was a very sharp one, with large, mad-looking yellow eyes; while this lady's face was soft and rounded, and her blue eyes really did seem kind. Still, the fact that her skin was green worried him- the only other person he knew with green skin was Gruntilda. But despite this person's resemblance to Gruntilda, something about her... calmed Banjo, put him at ease, as he stood there.

"Err, hello," Banjo said uncertainly, encouraged by the lady's kindly looking smile.

"Hello there, young ones!" the lady said. Her voice was soft and chime-like. "I'm Brentilda, Gruntilda's nicer sister."

"Her sister?" Banjo yelped, taking a step back. Were he and Kazooie in danger from this lady? She hardly looked threatening- really, she looked anything but. But if she was Gruntilda's sister...

Brentilda nodded, but said reassuringly, "I've crept down here to help you defeat the old hag, it's about time she was taught a lesson! I know all of Gruntilda's disgusting secrets, and I'll tell you three of them every time you find me. Remember them well, young ones, as they will help you avoid a fiery fate! Just say the word if you'd like to hear them!"

"You- you want to help us?" Banjo asked, startled.

"Yes, I do. My sister has always been a horrible old hag, and now that she has that little bear held captive- Tooty isn't it?- she has to be stopped."

"You've seen my sister?" Banjo exclaimed, now taking a step toward Brentilda with a sudden rush of fear and excitement. "How is she, what's going on? Why did Grunty take her?"

"Don't worry, your little sister is fine, so far," Brentilda assured him, raising a hand toward him comfortingly. "Nothing has been done to her yet."

Banjo closed his eyes, letting out his breath in a massive gust of air, and his shoulders slumped with relief. His sister was alright! As least so far, she was okay! Over his shoulder, he heard Kazooie let out a quiet sigh of her own.

"Why did Grunty kidnap her?" he asked again after a brief pause, keeping his eyes closed.

"Well..." Brentilda hesitated, and Banjo opened his eyes to read her expression. It was sad, and... ashamed? "My sister is a rotten witch, and she's always been far too obsessed with her appearance. That obsession is what brought all this on." Brentilda waved her wand indicating the world around them. She then took a deep breath and began to explain.

Banjo and Kazooie listened, Banjo with a growing sense of horror and Kazooie with disgust, as Brentilda told them what Gruntilda's plan was. She intended to drain little Tooty of her looks and take them for her own so that she would be beautiful and Tooty, sweet, innocent, little Tooty would become as hideous as Gruntilda was now.

"That always was my sister's way," Brentilda tutted with a small shake of her head, when she was through. "Shallow, selfish, and little else..."

"What, she can't just go see a plastic-surgeon or something?" Kazooie exclaimed.

"You'd think she'd try that first, but no- Grunty has never been one to go for the most obvious, simple, non-horrible method..." Brentilda sighed. "And it's not simply that she wants to be beautiful- if that was all she wanted, she might have chosen a different way- but it's more than that. She wants Tooty to be ugly. My sister hates anything prettier than her."

"So she hates everything in existence?" Kazooie asked innocently.

"She would, if she wasn't completely convinced that she is more beautiful than most everything in the world- or was, before she found out about Tooty," Brentilda answered in a wry tone. "She does, however, _dislike_ nearly everything in existence, just on principle."

As horrified as Banjo was, a part of him was incredibly relieved. As awful as Gruntilda's plan was, at least Tooty's life wasn't in danger from it- as least Grunty wasn't planning to... Banjo cut off the thought before it could form, not wanting to even imagine it, especially since he now knew it wasn't a danger, that it wasn't going to happen.

"But she's safe for now, isn't she?" Banjo asked, his voice a little shaky. "We still have time to save her?"

"Yes, you do. I used my magic to make the transformation machine malfunction- it will take some time for it to be fixed, time you can use to save your sister."

"Thank you, Brentilda!" Banjo exclaimed, just barely stopping himself from leaping at Brentilda and grabbing her in a hug. "You saved her!"

"I only did what anyone would have, if they could," Brentilda said. "That sweet little bear doesn't deserve what my sister has planned. And, as I said, it's time my sister was taught a lesson."

"Is Tooty really scared?" Banjo asked quietly after a brief pause.

Brentilda nodded sadly. "She is. But she seems very sure you'll come to rescue her, and I'm sure that's a comfort."

"How do we know any of this is true?" Kazooie asked suspiciously. "I mean, come on, if you're that hag's sister..."

"It is true, I promise you. Grunty is a horrible sister, and a horrible person. I would never help her with anything!"

"I think she's telling the truth, Kazooie," Banjo said to his friend. "We can trust her."

"Hmm," Kazooie hummed with her green eyes narrowed, clearly not completely convinced, though Banjo got the impression that Brentilda's kindness and offer to help them was getting through to the breegull. "Alright, fine. So what kind of disgusting secrets are we talking about here?" she asked with sudden interest. "Give us the dirt!"

"Alright, and be sure to remember what I'm about to tell you, it will help you on your way," Brentilda urged them. "First of all, lets see... Grunty brushes her rotten teeth with _**salted slug**_ flavored tooth paste! She also washes her hair with _**rancid milk**_. Yuk! And she gets her clothes from _**Saggy Maggy's Boutique**_!"

Seconds passed as Banjo and Kazooie stared at Brentilda in appalled silence.

"Salted... slug," Banjo muttered, wide-eyed. "Ra- rancid..." He paused for a long moment, swallowing. Then he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "What?"

"I know." Brentilda nodded in sympathetic understanding. "She really is disgusting, isn't she?"

"What use does telling us that stuff do us?" Kazooie said, sounding almost as nauseous as Banjo felt. Banjo was surprised at that- Kazooie was rarely disgusted by anything, no matter how, well, disgusting, it was. But then again, what they'd just heard seemed a special kind of sickening.

"Like I said, hearing and remembering these secrets could save you from a fiery fate!"

"And I don't suppose you care to elaborate on that, Miss Fairy Dust?" Kazooie asked flatly.

"No, not really," Brentilda replied with a slight shrug.

"Yeah... thought not..."

"Well, we'll... we'll try to remember this, Miss Brentilda," Banjo said weakly, his stomach still rolling. _Salted slug toothpaste?_ "So... we'll see you again?" he asked, remembering what she said about telling them three secrets every time they found her.

"Yes, you will," Brentilda confirmed with a smile. "Many more times. And please, just call me Brentilda, there's no need for the miss." Banjo nodded his agreement, and Brentilda continued, "I know many of my sister's disgusting secrets, and I'll tell you more next time you find me. I'll be in hidden places all throughout the lair, so you may have to look hard."

"Why does everybody make us chase them around everywhere instead of telling us everything at once?" Kazooie exclaimed, highly exasperated.

"Well, do you really want to hear all of these at once, or would you rather wait until you stop feeling sick from the ones I just told you? I could tell them all to you right now, but you might loose your lunch if you hear too many at once..."

Banjo and Kazooie swapped a glance.

"Later," Banjo pleaded, looking back at Brentilda.

"Yeah, I've changed my mind. _Much _later!" Kazooie squawked.

"Wise choice."

There was a pause for an uncomfortable moment as both the bear and bird did their best to try not to think about what other secrets Brentilda might have to tell them about her sister.

"Well, thanks again, Brentilda, and I don't think we'll have any trouble remembering those secrets," Banjo said once the pause had reached its end. He really didn't think there'd be any chance they'd forget what Brentilda had told them. There were some things you just couldn't forget after you've heard them, no matter how much you might want to. "I guess we'll be on our way now."

"Alright then, and good luck, you two," Brentilda said with a smile. "I'm sure you will save your little sister, Banjo." She blinked as though suddenly remembering something. "Oh! And be sure to watch out for that Gruntling over there," she told them, pointing over at the red-cloaked ape-like creature Banjo had noticed wandering around the room.

"Gruntling?" Banjo asked, confused.

"They're some of my sister's most common minions- you'll find them all over the lair. The ones that wear red, like that one, are the weakest. But don't let your guard down when facing them. And be sure to watch out for the other kinds as well! The Gruntlings that wear blue are much stronger then the ones that wear red, and the ones in black really outstrip the blue-clothed ones. It will take quite a fews hits to defeat those."

Banjo nodded. "Will do, we'll be on the lookout for them!"

"They won't stand a chance!" Kazooie said confidently.

"Good bye, you two," Brentilda said. "I'll see you again soon!"

With a grateful smile, Banjo turned away from the kindly fairy godmother and started again toward the beach-like painting he'd been heading for when Brentilda had first appeared. He glanced back at Brentilda as he walked, just in time to see her vanish into thin air.

Taking that in stride, Banjo continued on. He stepped into the sand that covered the floor in front of the painting and surrounded the painting's Jiggy podium. The sand was cool beneath his paws, since there was no sunlight in the lair to heat it.

Walking over toward the Jiggy podium, but not yet onto it, Banjo looked up at the picture on the wall in front of him. It was missing two pieces; empty Jigsaw shaped holes that marred the otherwise beautiful painting, but was still complete enough that he could clearly imagine the whole scene.

It looked like they would definitely be exploring a beach World next. The most noticeable part of the picture was in its center; a large, curving mountainous shape that rose in a high arch above the ground far below it, like an upside down U. It was made of reddish stone, from what Banjo could see. The top of the mountain, on top of the arch's highest point, had a section jutting even higher above the ground. At the very tip of that sat a lighthouse.

The arch-like mountain had smaller sections leading off of it, sections that sprawled far away from the mountain from which they jutted. They looked to Banjo to be of varying sizes, though all still rose quite far from the ground; they were shaped like massive stone pilars with very wide tops. The stone pilars were connected to each other by a network of stone walkways, the walkways themselves arching above the ground like bridges that left spaces underneath them. In the lower left corner of the painting was a patch of water leading off the edge of the drawing. Banjo guessed that it was probably the sea. The ground at the bottom of the painting was clearly all clean, smooth-looking yellow sand.

Banjo couldn't help smiling a little. He liked beaches for many reasons, from building sandcastles to splashing in the tide as it drew near and then flowed back again. He hadn't been to a beach for some time, but the last beach he'd visited had been a lovely place called Breegull Beach. In fact, that was where he'd met Kazooie. He'd found the young red-crested breegull nestled in her blue backpack near the shore of the beach.

Banjo had gone to talk to the then unfamiliar breegull, wondering why she was alone. Most of the breegulls he'd seen around the beach had been with friends or family, but not Kazooie. She, like Banjo, himself, had been very young, just a child at that point; in her case, a nestling. Kazooie had been so young then that she hadn't yet learned to fly. He'd asked her name, and the two of them had struck up a friendship surprisingly quickly. It hadn't taken Banjo very long to get used to his friend's somewhat snarky attitude. It helped that she only very rarely turned that attitude on Banjo.

It turned out that Kazooie had nowhere to go, no home to go to. She hadn't known where her parents were, had been seperated from them, and despite searching hard for them, he and Kazooie hadn't managed to find the two breegulls. So, when Banjo had gone home, he'd done so with a backpack on his back and a new best friend resting within it.

Kazooie had been with him ever since, and she'd adjusted very quickly to living in a home rather than in the open spaces like her kind usually did. Of course, since she'd never been taught to fly when she'd lived with breegulls who could show her how, she still hadn't managed to take to the skies.

But thinking of beaches almost always brought Breegull Beach to Banjo's mind. He didn't think he'd mind exploring this next World very much, though he reminded himself that beach or not, Grunty had taken it over. She must have changed it in some way, sent her minions into the World. It was bound to be dangerous in some way, probably many ways. Still, Banjo was almost looking forward to going there, wherever _there_ was.

"Kazooie, we'll be heading to a beach next!" he told her, glancing back at her with a smile.

Kazooie stuck her head of the backpack, and looked at the picture over his shoulder. "Huh... Nice!" she exclaimed, sounding pleased.

Banjo nodded his agreement. "Maybe the next World won't be so bad," he said hopefully.

Done examining the painting and ready to fill in the picture's missing pieces, he stepped up onto the Jiggy pedestal with Kazooie still looking over his shoulder.

Remembering how he'd done it the first time, Banjo pulled a Jigsaw piece from his backpack and held it up toward the painting. Just like before, the piece glowed bright yellow in his grip, and turned transparent as it faded from sight and out of his hold. Then it re-appeared in the painting, fading into solidity, filling in one of the two missing spaces in the picture. As it formed, it took on the colors of the picture it was depicting. It turned from solid yellow to the blue of the sky and white of its clouds as it filled in the topmost missing space. Though he'd seen it before, Banjo was just as amazed as he'd been the first time he'd seen this.

Banjo wasn't too surprised when they heard Bottles' voice. He'd almost been expecting it, really. Though he still wasn't sure how Bottles' voice came from nowhere like it did... "To remove pieces that you have already put down, just hold your hand up toward the picture, and the Jiggy will reappear in your hand," Bottles told them. "But once the picture is complete, all the pieces are stuck there permanently!"

"Why would we ever need to remove pieces?" Banjo asked, tilting his head to the side.

"If you only had a few Jiggies with you but two paintings to fill, and if you filled in a few of the missing pieces on both, you wouldn't have enough in either painting to open either World. You wouldn't be able to advance if you couldn't completely fill either picture. Removing some of the pieces from one picture and putting them all together into the other to open that World would be the only way you could continue on your adventure."

Banjo nodded. That made sense. "Okay. Thanks for explaining that, Bottles!"

Holding up a second Jigsaw piece, Banjo filled in the last missing space in the painting. Once that was done, he grinned at the sight of the completed painting.

Then he realized something; he didn't know where the entrance to the World they'd just opened was. "Err, Bottles?" he called. "How do we get to this World?"

"The entrance to the next World is a little deeper inside the lair, but it shouldn't be hard for you to find," the mole answered promptly.

"Alright," Banjo said with another nod. He glanced back at Kazooie. "Lets check around here a bit more before we go looking for that World, okay, Kazooie?"

"Fine by me." She shrugged. "Just as long as its quick."

"Right!" Banjo stepped off of the Jiggy podium, turning his back on the painting to face the rest of the room again.

From where they stood now, across from them and a little to the left was that ledge high in the wall with the other painting on it. Set back in an alcove on that ledge was the second painting Banjo had noticed, the one he wasn't sure how he'd be able to reach. He decided to look there first, and ran across the room, crossing over the Grunty portrait in the center of the room, and skirting around the giant depiction of her head in a nervous attempt to avoid walking on her likeness as much as possible. As silly as he knew it was, that portrait of Gruntilda made him nervous.

Once he got close to the ledge with the painting on it, he saw something that he'd missed before. Underneath the ledge, on the ground, was a small platform, like a smaller version of the ledge it was placed under. The platform was a short one compared to a lot of things Banjo had seen so far in the lair, and the top of it rose to the bottom of Banjo's head. Still, he could easily jump onto it, thanks to Bottles' jump training. And from where he stood on the ground next to it, he could see what looked like some kind of disc set in the center of the platform. Curious, he leapt up onto the platform and landed next to the disc.

Though set low to the ground, barely rising just above the height of Banjo's paws, the disc was a wide one, and completely circular. The first thing he noticed about the disc was that emblazed on its front was what looked like a picture of a breegull's orange-colored leg. It ended in a orange foot that had four talons; three in the front and one in the back, much like Kazooie's talons, though she lacked the back one. And just like her talons, each talon was tipped with a sharp white claw. Around the picture of the breegull's foot, the disc was a bright, almost acid green, and the edge of the disc was rimmed with yellow. It looked to Banjo like the disc was likely made of steel.

"Kazooie, take a look at this. It's a little strange..." Banjo trailed off.

His friend looked out of the backpack and down at the disk. "I'll say that's strange!" she exclaimed. "Is that a picture of my _foot?_"

"I think so."

"...What's a picture of my foot doing on a disc in a room in the middle of a witch's lair?"

"I think it's best not to think about it." Banjo sighed. "Well, lets check it out." He stepped onto the disk, almost waiting to hear Bottles speak.

He wasn't disappointed; "This is Kazooie's Shock Jump Disc," Bottles' voice echoed around the room, "find me and I'll tell you how to use it!"

"Shock Jump Disc?" Banjo repeated. "Alright then, Bottles. Where can we find you? Are you somewhere around here?"

"I'll teach you how to use it in the next World you're able to go to, the one you just opened. Find me there!" Bottles' voice faded away.

"Okay." Banjo cast one more look up toward the unreachable ledge overheard, where the second painting he'd noticed in this room waited. He supposed that he'd be able to get to it once Bottles had taught them how to use the Shock Jump Disc; but at the moment, it was still out of their reach.

He looked around. Aside from the exit set high in the wall that the bridge arching up from the portrait of Gruntilda led up to, there was only one more place for Banjo and Kazooie to explore in this room- that hole in the wall, leading into that downward sloping tunnel he'd spotted earlier. The hole in the wall was to the left of the door from which Banjo had first entered this room, but from where they stood now, it was almost directly across from them. Unfortunately, so was that enemy Brentilda had warned them about, the Gruntling.

Though it was hard to tell from this distance, Banjo was sure the ape-like enemy was much bigger than him. All the same, he knew he'd have to get past it, and that if he was going to go deep enough into the lair to save Tooty, he was going to face far worse than that enemy. And he knew that then, of course, he'd have to fight Gruntilda. So large creepy ape-like thing or not, he was going through that doorway.

Taking in a bracing breath, Banjo jumped down from the platform with the Shock Jump Disc and ran across the room. For a moment, he thought that he might make it to the doorway into the tunnel without the Grunting spotting them, but, naturally, the Gruntling turned just as they approached and caught sight of them.

Instantly it let out a grunting "Rawl!", and, like the goblin-like enemies they'd faced in Mumbo's Mountain, put its arms high over its head as it ran toward Banjo and Kazooie, its jaw gaping open.

Banjo scrambled back a step, frightened by its size. It was almost twice as tall as Banjo, and certainly three times as wide. Then he stiffened. He wasn't about to back down from this enemy, not when Tooty needed him.

He stood his ground as it rapidly approached, about to charge straight into him; then he lashed out with a powerful Claw Swipe attack, striking and knocking the much larger creature backward. It landed on its feet with a grunt, and as it regained its balance, eyes sparking with anger, and got ready to charge at him again, Banjo launched into a Forward Roll and plowed into it.

That second blow was too much for it to take. The red-cloaked Gruntling was thrown backward from the force of Banjo's attack, flipping end over end in mid-air before landing on its back, its arms flopping to either side, its mouth still hanging open as it lost consciousness.

Banjo rolled straight onto his paws in time to see a piece of Honey Energy fall to the ground, having been dropped by his defeated foe. He panted a little, feeling shaken from facing something so much larger than himself; but proud that he hadn't backed down.

Kazooie stuck her head out and looked around. "Huh!" she exclaimed in surprise. "You didn't even need my help to beat it. There might be hope for you yet!"

"Thanks, Kazooie!" Banjo said, knowing that was about as close to a compliment as Kazooie was capable of giving. He snatched up the fallen Honey Energy and broke it in half, passing some back to his friend, which she took in her wing.

After they'd eaten, Banjo licked the last traces of honey from his paws and continued toward that hole in the wall that formed a doorway. He passed through the opening and into the downward sloping tunnel, stepping down onto smooth gray stone steps. He headed down the tunnel which curved down and gently to the left as it went along, twisting out of sight. Still, it wasn't long before Banjo and Kazooie reached the end of the tunnel of stairs.

They emerged into a relatively small stone cave. Small, at least, compared to the room they'd just come from. Altogether, though, Banjo still had the feeling the cave-like room they were in now was larger than his whole house. This room, like the one before it, was circular. The walls' dark gray stone was marked with designs in the shapes of black arches. The ceiling was pebbly and green colored, and the floor was largely made of dirt but had some dark moss near the center of the room. At regular intervals around the curving edge of the room, blue eggs were placed, but Banjo's attention was caught by what stood in the room's center.

On a circular moss-covered platform rising a little above the surrounding floor sat what looked to Banjo to be a cauldron. Gray in color, with a large, thick rim on top and two thin metal legs beneath, the cauldron had golden handles on its sides. It also happened to have a mouth and eyes. Somehow, Banjo wasn't really surprised.

The cauldron's eyes were closed at the moment, its wide mouth moving open and shut as soft snores filled the room. It was leaning backward, at rest. Its arm-like handles flicked slightly every now and then as if it was dreaming. Did living cauldrons dream? Banjo had to wonder.

He cautiously approached the cauldron. As he reached the edge of the platform it stood on, it suddenly jerked to an upright position, its eyes opening as it woke. Startled, Banjo skipped back a step, and Kazooie stuck her head out of the pack to see what was going on.

As the cauldron woke, Banjo was even more startled to see it change color. Though its handles stayed golden, its main body, which had been gray, suddenly turned to a pinkish-purple. A stream of greenish smoke began to rise out of the cauldron's top, curling into the air, as though it were holding some kind of potion in its hollowed center. Its eyes blinked at Banjo, a bright blue, and its wide mouth was curved into a happy smile.

"You've activated a Magic Cauldron!" the cauldron told them in a voice that sounded like bubbling liquid. "Find two the same color to create a short cut!"

The cauldron gave a little hop into the air, flapping its handles like it would wings, the handles of the wings squeaking at their hinges, before dropping back to the ground.

"You're a Magic Cauldron?" Banjo asked. "Okay..." Living cauldrons... that spoke. Well, he really had seen weirder things today, so he decided not to comment on that. "You mean we'll find more Magic Cauldrons in the lair?"

He wasn't really expecting an answer- none of the other living inanimate objects he'd met today had been very chatty after all- so he was surprised when it spoke again. "That's right!" it said cheerfully. "There are quite a few of us. Once you find the other Magic Cauldron that's the same color as me, we'll form a link between our two locations. Hop into one of us to be transported to the location of the other! Its really handy if you don't want to walk all that way!"

"That's great!" Banjo exclaimed. "I like shortcuts. We're really meeting a lot of people who want to help us," he added thoughtfully. "Thank you, Mr. Cauldron!"

"Glad to help!" it announced, giving another happy hop.

Banjo, Kazooie, and the Magic Cauldron all looked around in surprise as Grunty spoke, her tone impatient; "Can't you get here any faster? Come and fight me, I'm the master!"

"Keep your hat on, Wart Face!" Kazooie squawked at the air. "We're coming!"

"Thanks for helping us," Banjo said to the Magic Cauldron, deciding to ignore Grunty's outburst. "Do you mind if we collect these eggs?" he asked, waving a paw at the blue eggs circling the room.

"Go right ahead, and take this Mumbo Token back here, too."

"Mumbo Token?" Banjo walked around the cave to see that there was indeed a Mumbo Token in the room. Placed against the wall and behind the platform their new friend the cauldron stood on, the Token sparkled with gray light in the dim illumination. "Great!" Banjo scooped up the Token, passed it back to Kazooie to store in the backpack, and then ran a circle around the cave as he collected the blue eggs, which came to a total of eight.

That done, he headed back toward the entrance. "See you, Mr. Cauldron!" he called as he started up, hearing it call its own farewell behind him. He hurried back up the winding stairs.

Reaching the top of the flight of stairs and exiting the tunnel, Banjo re-entered the room with the two paintings and the giant Gruntilda portrait that was set into the ground in the center of the room. Now he'd checked everywhere in this room, except for that doorway in the wall, the one he could reach via the bridge leading up from the Grunty picture. He knew that would take him deeper into the lair.

Not wasting another moment, Banjo raced across the room, stepped onto the portrait of Grunty, and started up the green-colored bridge that rose to the doorway in the wall. As he climbed it, he moved more slowly, not wanting to fall off of either side of the bridge which had no railing. Reaching the doorway, he passed through it into a dark tunnel toward the next area of the lair.

The room they emerged into was damp, dank, and called underground caves very much to Banjo's mind. Water dripped steadily from a stone ceiling that was dotted with thick stalactites. The ground was a mottled light brown with areas covered in dark moss, and not far ahead from where they entered, a massive pipe, large enough for Banjo to easily walk into, stuck out from the right wall. Above the pipe was a circular hole in the wall that looked to Banjo like the opening to another pipe. The higher pipe, though, was even with the wall around it, unlike the pipe it was placed over. That one jutted a fair distance out from the wall. Banjo thought that by standing on the lower pipe and using the Flap Flip to backflip up, he and Kazooie could probably reach that hole in the wall to see where it led.

The lower pipe, the one big enough to walk into, was in a lowered section of floor; a lowered section that formed a channel. Water flowed from that pipe and through the channel toward their left, forming a little stream that cut the room in half. Looking to the left, Banjo saw that there was a cliff of sorts in that direction, where the rest of the room dropped out of the sight. The stream of water from the pipe flowed over the cliff's edge.

Banjo walked to the edge of the cliff and looked down, curious. The water dropped in a waterfall into a pool down below- quite a ways below. The pool of water was deep and shadowed, but clear, and through the water, Banjo could see a underwater tunnel placed against the pool's back wall, leading somewhere out of sight. Opposite the underwater tunnel, ahead of where Banjo and Kazooie had entered the room, there was a higher patch of land bordering the pool. It was on the opposite side of the stream from Banjo, though that part of land that bordered the pool was still at the bottom of the cliff, while Banjo stood at the top. From where Banjo stood, he could see a wide opening in the wall on that lower patch of land, forming a doorway leading to somewhere else.

Across the stream from them, Banjo could see a thin green colored pipe falling away down the cliff toward the lower sections of the room; to the patch of ground and the pool of water it was placed by. Banjo thought that he could probably use that pipe to climb down to the lower areas. Though it was much thinner and much smaller than the pipe through which the stream flowed, that pipe that led down the side of the cliff was still roughly as wide and Banjo was, and he was sure it would support his weight if he chose to use it as a ladder.

Right across the stream from them, on top of the cliff and so on even ground with where they currently stood, was another little patch of square land, the patch the small green pipe led down from. Wandering around on that land, to Banjo's displeasure, was another red-cloaked Gruntling, though it didn't seem as though it had noticed the bear and bird duo. Maybe they were all near-sighted and couldn't see enemies until they came close.

Also on that patch of land across from them, a hill of land rose in the back-right corner, pressed against the walls behind and to the right of it. That hill led up a second Note Door, much like the one they'd passed through not too long ago.

Banjo walked over to the edge of the channel and looked down into the stream. The water flowed speedily from the pipe. It was a clear blue, so Banjo thought it was probably clean water, though Banjo was a little uncomfortable being in contact with any water he might find in the witch's lair. The pipe opening to their right was wide, and led away into darkness. Banjo let out a sigh. There wasn't much that he'd hate doing more, but if he wanted to be thorough, he'd have to check out the inside of that pipe and see where it led.

"We're going for a swim, Kazooie," he warned his friend, then jumped down into the stream, landing with a splash. The water was high enough for Banjo to swim in, though just a little too shallow to dive under. It rushed passed him, pressing his fur flat to his body and leaving him soaked. The water was cold, cold enough that Banjo just swam in place for a moment, shivering as he tried to get used to the temperature. He noticed the water had an unpleasant metallic scent, which he tried to ignore.

Once he was more adjusted to the temperature of the water, he paddled toward the pipe, which was many times high enough and wide enough for him to pass through. He swam into pipe, passing into darkness.

The pipe narrowed as he swam, the walls closing in toward him, though remaining far enough away to stave off a feeling of claustrophobia, and the water level lowered until Banjo could stand and travel on foot, allowing him to splash through a low stream.

Though it was still pitch-black for a few more moments as he continued through the pipe, Banjo soon began to see light, and the reason for that soon became clear. A jagged hole was torn in the pipe's metal wall to their right, allowing light to pour in. The pipe led on in the direction Banjo and Kazooie had been traveling, but just past the jagged hole, the path was blocked by a metal grate, meaning they couldn't go any deeper that way. That suited Banjo just fine. He hadn't really enjoyed the thought of going much deeper into this pipe.

Banjo, figuring that he might as well explore around here before heading back through the pipe to its entrance and the stream, hopped out through the hole in the pipe. He landed in another shallow pool in a small room. The water filled most of the room, perhaps having leaked into it from the broken pipe.

Walking around nearby, and far too close by, was yet another red-cloaked Gruntling. Banjo was beginning to see what Brentilda had meant when she called the Gruntlings some of Grunty's most common minions. Though Banjo wasn't really sure what this one was doing wandering around here, of all places- it was a rather remote area. Then again, Banjo was here, wasn't he?

He stepped back, hoping the Gruntling wouldn't notice him. Unfortunately, in such close quarters there was little chance that it wouldn't. Yep, it noticed him. It charged at him with a "Rawl!" just like the one Banjo had fought in the room with the giant Grunty portrait in the floor had. And just like that one, it was taken out by Banjo's Forward Roll.

He came up standing, shaking water from his eyes and fighting back a sneeze from his roll through the water. As he did, Banjo saw a flash of gold as the Honey Energy piece that had been held by the defeated enemy flew into the air, then began to drop toward the water near where he stood. Not wanting to eat soggy Honey Energy, Banjo made a wild lunge and snatched it from the air before it could fall into the water. He happily ate his half, giving the other half to Kazooie, then looked around the room.

A lot of the room was taken up by the pipe Banjo had traveled through. He saw that he could get back inside by leaping back through the hole in the pipe's wall. But against the back wall and to their right, was a area of land that rose above the water, creating a dry spot. On that patch of land sat another Magic Cauldron, snoring away as it slept, just like the first one Banjo and Kazooie had seen.

Banjo trotted over and leapt up onto the patch of land, stopping in front of the sleeping cauldron. It instantly jerked awake, opening its eyes as the color of its body changed from gray to, this time, a bright red.

"You've activated a Magic Cauldron!" it said brightly, in a voice very much like the voice of the first cauldron they'd met. Its words, to Banjo's surprise, were exactly the same as well. "Find two the same color to create a short cut!"

"Okay," Banjo nodded, smiling. They'd already found the second Magic Cauldron! Though if Banjo remembered right, the first cauldron they'd met had been a pinkish-purple, while this one was bright red, which meant neither of them could be used as a short cut to the other. Banjo and Kazooie would just have to keep looking until they'd found the second of each color, so they did have some short cuts. He was fine with that. They seemed to be making pretty good progress by Banjo's guess. "Thanks for your help in advance!" he said, and the cauldron gave a happy bounce in response.

Banjo turned back toward the pipe, ready to leave and go back through it, back to the room from which they'd entered the pipe. Before he could start off, however, he spotted another Mumbo Token sitting on top of the pipe in a shadowy corner. He hurried over to it, and with Kazooie's help, used the Flap Flip to flip up onto the pipe, landing on the smooth curving metal.

He picked up the skull-shaped Token and added it to their Mumbo Token count, even more pleased at their progress. He guessed they could use as many Mumbo Tokens as they could find if Mumbo was going to be able to help them with more transformation spells later on. That made two new Mumbo Tokens he and Kazooie had now. They'd given all the ones they'd found in Mumbo's Mountain to Mumbo himself, so the Shaman would turn them into Tickers.

Hopping down from the top of the pipe and landing back in the water, Banjo then jumped into the inside of the giant pipe through the ragged hole in its side. He headed back in the direction he'd come, swimming again when the water got too high to stand in. It wasn't long before he'd paddled back out of the pipe, and into the stream that flowed from it.

He jumped out of the stream on the side of land with the door Banjo and Kazooie had first entered this room from, the door that led back to the room with the giant portrait of Grunty set into its floor. Banjo quickly headed over to the pipe jutting from the wall that they'd just exited and leapt up onto it, ready to explore the next area. From the top of the pipe, he and Kazooie used the Flap Flip to reach the hole set in the wall, and, landing on the rim of the hole, walked deeper into it, along its steel bottom into deep shadows.

They emerged in a large open area filed with pipes and water. They were on a section of land that looked to Banjo to be one of only a few sections of dry land in this otherwise water-filled room. The air was filled with the sound of droplets falling from the ceiling into the water below, and pinging against the pipes that crossed the room in many places. The water was like a lake, deep and wide, disappearing into another open area to their left and largely blocked from Banjo's sight by the edge of a wall and pipes from then on. The only other dry spot he could see was another section of land across the way from where they stood, though it was too far away to jump to and too high above the water to be able to reach if they swam over to it.

"Banjo!" Bottles' unexpected call made the honey bear jump in alarm. "This room holds the entrance to another World," Bottles told them. "But you won't be able to reach it yet. You haven't opened the World this room leads to yet, and you won't be able to until I teach you how to use the Shock Jump Disc, so there's not much to do in this room until then."

"Alright, Bottles," Banjo said. He looked back at Kazooie. "I guess we'd better head back to the last room."

Heaving a sigh, Banjo turned and went back through the doorway he'd just come from. This lair was so big that Banjo wasn't sure how he'd ever be able to find everything he needed to in here.

Stepping back into the room with the stream and the cliff, Banjo jumped down from the hole in the wall, this time landing on the patch of land that had the Gruntling and the hill that led up to the Note Door. Banjo dispatched the Gruntling with hardly a pause, then looked up the hill. It was far too steep for him to climb, but he knew Kazooie and her Talon Trot would be able to handle it with no problem.

Sure enough, when he asked her to, Kazooie carried them up to the top of the short hill easily, and stopped in front of the Note Door. As Kazooie let him regain his feet and look at the Note Door, she peered over his shoulder at it as well.

It was much like the first Note Door they'd seen, shaped like an arch and made of wooden planks. It also had the same magical shimmering effect as the door before it, and the golden symbol on its front switched between the shape of a Musical Note and a number; in this case, the number 180.

Banjo cast a look back at his backpack with a wince. He and Kazooie had only collected one hundred Notes, meaning they had a Note Score of just one hundred. Not nearly enough.

And sure enough, as he took a step closer to the door, hoping, though doubtfully, that it might open despite their lack of enough Notes, nothing happened. Nothing, that is, aside from Gruntilda speaking smugly; "You've found some Notes, but you'll need more, to break my spell and pass this Door!"

"I guess the entrance to that beach World we opened must be somewhere around here, then, Kazooie," Banjo said, trying to pretend that Grunty had not spoken.

"Let's find it, then!" the breegull squawked. "I can't take much more of that hag's rhyming! Sheesh!"

"Okay." Banjo turned away from the Note Door and slid back down the hill. From the base of the hill, he ran alongside the stream that flowed from the pipe, and headed toward the edge of the cliff that bisected the upper and lower parts of the room. Once he reached the cliff edge, Banjo dropped himself over it, swinging around, and grabbed onto the small green pipe that hung from the edge there and that acted as a make-shift ladder. He climbed down the pipe just as he would a tree, and before long, Banjo's paws touched solid ground again at the bottom of the cliff.

He was now on that patch of ground that bordered the deep pool of water created by the the stream that was now high above Banjo, the stream that tumbled over the cliff and into the pool as a waterfall.

Banjo was still amazed by how large Gruntilda's Lair was. How many places were there in the world that had what could be counted as a full-sized waterfall in one of their rooms? In fact, based on what he'd seen so far, it was one of the lair's _smaller_ rooms. He guessed not many. He really hoped that the size of the lair wouldn't make it even more difficult to save Tooty than it was likely to be already.

From where he stood now, Banjo had two more options of where to explore next. The doorway that led off from the patch of land he now stood on was one of them- and now that Banjo was closer to it, he gulped as he realized that the doorway had been carved into the shape of a gaping mouth. Small stalactites formed the teeth jutting from above. Set above the doorway itself, two red lights had been placed in the stone. They were formed in the shape of glowing eyes, narrowed as if in anger. He'd seen one just like it in the tunnel that led from the Lair's entrance to the entrance of Mumbo's Mountain's World, though that one had been far larger than this, but at least that mouth-like tunnel had been well lit. This one led into deep darkness that Banjo could see no relief to. That wasn't exactly inviting.

The second option he had was that tunnel in the pool of water next to him... the tunnel that led off somewhere out of sight. And since swimming through an underwater tunnel in the middle of an evil witch's lair somehow seemed much less nerve-wrecking than going through that mouth-shaped doorway into darkness would be, Banjo decided to take that option first. Besides, his fur hadn't yet dried from his trip through the water-washed pipe, so he might as well soak himself all over again before he actually did dry fully.

After warning Kazooie again that they were about to go swimming, Banjo stepped over to the pool and plunged down off the patch of land and into the water. He stayed on the surface for a moment as he swam the length of the pool over to the opening in the wall that led into the tunnel. The tunnel opening was under the water's surface, so both Banjo and Kazooie took a deep breath, and then Banjo dove while Kazooie flapped her wings through the water to send them deep.

As he passed through the inside of the tunnel, he noticed it was coated with slimy-looking green stuff its entire length. Banjo wasn't sure whether it was algae or moss, but he assumed the former. The tunnel twisted and turned several times along its length, and both he and Kazooie held their breath as they stroked hard through the water, trying to swim quickly to make it to the tunnel's end before they ran out of breath.

Sooner than he was expecting, though, they came out of the tunnel and into a pool. Banjo surfaced, gasping in damp air, to find that the small pool they were in was at the foot of a room that, aside from that patch of water, was mostly land. But that wasn't the interesting part.

The room they emerged into appeared to be, at first glance, a forest glade. The walls were wooden- not the kind of wooden that has been cut and smoothed into walls, but rough wood like that on the surface of a tree, natural and untouched by any sort of woodscraft- and veined with dark green moss. Along both walls trees grew from the ground to the ceiling; two along the right wall, one on the left. In the center of the room was a large stump with long, twisted roots, which, like the walls and the trees, also had streaks of moss on it. The ground was a carpet of green grass. The ceiling looked like a canopy of leaves, looked as though it was formed from the leaves of the trees that bordered the sides of the room. There were no holes among the ceiling's leaves for light to pour through, though, which there would be if it was truly made from the leaves of the surrounding trees, and indeed no light to be seen if there had been gaps in the leaves, since they weren't actually outside, however much this room gave that impression. In fact, though the room was illuminated, Banjo couldn't tell where the light might be coming from.

Still treading water, Banjo blinked, jarred. To have left a place as cave-like and dim as most of the lair he'd seen so far was, and end up in a place that looked like this felt strange, to say the least. He jumped out of the water and onto the grass. To his surprise, it seemed to really be grass as far as he could tell, not some kind of imitation turf.

Kazooie pulled her head and wings free of the pack and looked around. "Huh..." she said, mystified. "Wasn't expecting that..."

"I wonder what this room is for," Banjo said, looking around with wide eyes. "It seems out of place with the rest of the Lair, doesn't it?"

"Well, except for that room outside Mumbo's Mountain," Kazooie pointed out. "That had that sky wallpaper theme, and grass, and those weirdo flowers."

Banjo nodded. "It's still nothing like this room," he noted. "It didn't have trees... Trees, indoors..." Banjo decided he might quite like this room, if only it wasn't part of Gruntilda's Lair. He hopped up onto the stump just in front of him. It was a tall one that rose above his head. Now that he was standing on the stump and it was no longer blocking his view, he saw something on the wall across from them... it was another painting.

Banjo felt his mouth drop open. He was shocked at the daunting sight. The painting was missing every single piece but one! How could he possibly fill that one in? It needed so many pieces! Doing a quick count of the missing spaces he could see, Banjo figured that he would need fifteen Jigsaw pieces to fill in this painting; and at the moment, he and Kazooie only had nine.

Glancing around at the stump below his feet and the surrounding ground, Banjo noticed that, come to think of it, he couldn't see the Jiggy podium anywhere, and surely this painting was supposed to have one. The two paintings before it had. If there was no Jiggy podium to stand on, didn't that mean that even if he had all the pieces he needed he wouldn't be able to complete the picture anyway? Banjo wasn't sure, but he thought that the Jiggy podiums were necessary for that.

"Psst! Banjo! Kazooie!" A soft voice came from their right, and Banjo jumped. Spinning around, he saw Brentilda, floating close to the ground along the right wall and in the gap between the trunks of the two close-set trees, the pink of her dress a stark contrast to the woodsy colors of the wall behind her.

"Brentilda!" Banjo exclaimed, and hurried over to her. "I didn't expect to see you again so soon."

"I didn't think you'd find a room I was hidden in so soon," Brentilda countered. "You're searching the lair quite throughly, aren't you?"

"We're trying," Banjo answered with a nod.

"Hey, now that we've found you again, you're gonna tell us more about the hag, right?" Kazooie sounded almost hesitant. Banjo guessed she didn't really want to hear more of Gruntilda's disgusting habits and secrets anymore than he did.

"Yes, that's right!" Brentilda gave her golden wand a flick, causing specks of light to fall from its star-shaped tip. "But don't worry; I'll be quick about it."

"Alright..." Banjo said reluctantly. "Three more secrets, right?"

Brentilda nodded, thought for a moment as though sorting through all of the secrets she knew and deciding which ones to share this time, and began, "There are so many to choose from. My sister has no end of... interesting hobbies, habits, and secrets. But here are some more of them. Ugly Grunty's nickname was _**Hog Breath**_ at witch school! I also know that _**freshly burst boils**_ is her favorite smell! And the old hag's favorite color is _**gruesome green**_!"

Like the time before, there was a pause after Brentilda spoke.

"Eh, could have been worse," Kazooie said after a few seconds, shrugging her wings.

"I guess so," Banjo agreed. "Except for that boils thing..." He shivered.

"Be sure to remember what I just told you!" Brentilda insisted. "Oh, and before you leave, aren't you collecting those skull-shaped Tokens my sister stole from Mumbo Jumbo and hid everywhere?"

"Yup, we are." Banjo nodded.

"Well, there's one right over there!" Brentilda pointed across the room, toward the far left-back corner. Turning around, Banjo spotted the Mumbo Token wedged snugly in between the wall and the tree. "Oh, good!" he exclaimed. He ran over and collected it, and then walked back over to Brentilda. "Excuse me, but do you know where the Jiggy podium to fill in that painting is?" he asked her, figuring she probably knew all about the Jiggy podiums. After all, she seemed to know all of her sister's secrets, so why wouldn't she know about something like the Jiggies and paintings?

Brentilda frowned. "My sister used her magic to hide the Jiggy podium. You'll have to find a switch somewhere in this lair, a switch with a picture of a Jiggy podium on it. If you activate it, the podium should appear on the tree stump there, and you'll be able to fill in the painting."

"Do you know where the switch is?" Banjo asked.

"I'm afraid not," Brentilda said apologetically. "At least not exactly. But I believe you'll find it near the entrance to the World this painting opens. The area around that World looks a lot like this room, so you'll know it when you see it."

"Alright, thank you Brentilda!" Banjo smiled. "You're really doing a lot to help us."

"It's the least I can do. After all, my sister kidnapped yours. I believe that means I owe you at least my help getting her back safely."

Banjo nodded. "Well, you didn't kidnap her, Grunty did, so I don't think you really owe us your help. I'm just really glad you want to help us!"

"Yeah, great, really nice," Kazooie said impatiently. "But can we get going already, Banjo? We need to find the next World!"

"Right..." Banjo looked back at Brentilda. "See you next time, then!"

"Good bye, young ones!" Brentilda said with a farewell smile and wave, and Banjo turned to leave the room again.

He jumped back into the pool of water and swam back through the tunnel the way he'd come, returning to the room with the pipe, the cliff and the waterfall. He reached the surface, took a deep breath, and pulled himself out of the water and back onto the patch of land adjacent to it. He shook himself, trying to dry off. His backpack felt waterlogged from all the swimming, so he could guess how soaked Kazooie must be.

The only place he had left to explore now was that doorway right next to him, the one that looked like a gaping mouth with sharp stalactite teeth and bright red eyes over the opening. What a comforting prospect...

Shaking his head, Banjo headed over to the door and edged through it, casting a nervous look at the stalactites overhead as he passed under them. They weren't too close to him- almost double his height overhead, in fact- but they still looked too sharp for him to be happy about. The darkness of the doorway ahead was deep, but Banjo picked up his pace and moved through it quickly, eager to reach the light he knew must be at their end.

The doorway led to a flight of stairs, forcing him to slow to travel them more safely in the dark, and when Banjo reached their base, he saw that the room he emerged into was partially flooded. Shallow water covered the majority of the floor. The room was one of the bigger ones he'd seen so far, though perhaps not as big as the one with the portrait of Grunty set into the center of the floor.

He'd entered the room from what he guessed was its right side. Right across from him was a sheer-cut stone work; a structure of stone rising high above his head, though far lower than the vaulted ceiling. The stone work was in the shape of a rectangle, and wasn't large enough to span the entire length of the wall across from Banjo, though it was long enough to span perhaps three-quarters of the room's length.

The stone work was mostly made of green stone with yellow accenting, and parts of it had broken off from the main whole. Those chunks of rock were now laying haphazardly in front of the stone work structure. Though the structure was too large for Banjo to be able to get on top of it normally, he supposed he'd be able to stand on those pieces of tumbled rock and use them to gain enough height to reach the top of the stone work with a Flap Flip.

On top of the rectangular stone structure, nearly put out of Banjo's sight since it was high above his head and farther back on the structure's top, he could see the barrel of what looked to him be an old fashioned metal cannon of the kind pirates had used, the kind that were fired from on top of the deck itself. Banjo felt a jolt of excitement.

Directly to his left, in what he thought of as the back of the room, was only a sheer stone wall shooting up toward the ceiling. But behind him, when Banjo stepped forward and turned around to look, he saw to his surprise that the door he'd emerged from was set into what, at first glance, appeared to be the hull of a sailboat.

He blinked and then looked again. To his slight disappointment, it wasn't truly a sailboat. Rather, the doorway he'd just come through was set into the base of a structure _designed to look like_ the hull of a wooden sailboat, made from rich reddish-brown planks of wood. Directly above the door Banjo had come through, two windows were set into the hull, not portholes, to his further disappointment, but simply square-cut holes in the wall of the hull, each of them covered with a wire grating.

Along the sailboat structure's hull, near its base and so set close to the water-flooded floor, were three more square holes. These holes, to Banjo's delight, were not holes for windows. They were holes from which the edges of canons could be seen. But unlike the one on top of the stone work structure set across the way, these cannons were the kind that were set into the side of a ship's hull. These kinds of cannons had been used by pirates to attack ships they were targeting in a method called broadside; in which both ships were sailing parallel to each other, firing at each other, and the one with the most cannons was typically the winner. The one with fewer cannons... well, not so much.

While two of them were flush with the edges of their window-like holes, one of the three cannons was jutting out a short distance from the hull. The jutting cannon made a possible platform. Banjo and Kazooie could jump from the tip of this canon to get onto the top of the ship-like structure, or the deck of the ship, if it were real.

Banjo had loved ships ever since he'd been a young cub, and had been all but mesmerized by the stories of swashbuckling pirates, and of such phrases as 'Batten down the hatches', and 'Yo ho ho'. He'd often played a pirate as a little cub, pretending to be sailing the high seas, sword-fighting with scallywags and finding buried booty and hidden isles. Though that phase had passed after a while, and he no longer wished to sail under the Jolly Roger- especially once he'd learned what doing so often meant in terms of morality, not to mention the mortality rate for pirates- he'd still retained a deep interest in ships, their parts, how they were built, and how they worked. As a result, Banjo knew much about many kinds of ships.

As thrilled as he was to be looking at this likeness of a ship's hull, having seen its like before only in pictures, Banjo was brought back to earth when he remembered that he and Kazooie still needed to find the entrance to the next World if they were going to find Tooty. He wrenched his gaze away from the ship-like structure and glanced around the room again.

Toward the back of the room- to the right of where Banjo had entered- was a patch of land, covered in sand, rising from the water. The hill of sand was dry, since the water that flooded the room wasn't high enough to soak it, and was set fairly close to the back wall. But the thing that got Banjo's attention was that resting on that hill of sand was a gigantic treasure chest. Made of red painted wood with ornate gold trimming, the chest was a magnificent one, not even taking into account its astounding size. Even from where Banjo stood across the large room from it, he could see that the treasure chest rose above the ground several times his height, and many more times as wide as he was, length-wise. At the moment, the chest hung wide open, its curved lid leaning back into the air.

Banjo headed toward the chest, wanting a closer look. His paws splashed through the water until he came to the hill of sand, walked up, and stopped in front of the chest. He was astonished by its size. Sure, everything in this Lair was big- but this was a _treasure chest_, and it was larger than he'd imagined any treasure chests could ever have been made. As he looked up at it, he noticed that in the center of the chest's front was a golden plaque, just under the keyhole.

Written on that plaque in bright white block letter was the legend 'Treasure Trove Cove'.

Intrigued, Banjo said, "Kazooie, you have to see this!"

Though he didn't look back at his friend, Banjo could swear that he felt her eyes light up at the sight of the treasure chest. "Alright!" Kazooie exclaimed. "Now that's more like it!"

"Do you think there's treasure in it?" Banjo wondered hopefully, his memories of cub-hood games in which he'd found vast hordes of treasure surfacing to the front of his mind.

"Gotta be, Banjo, it's a treasure chest!" Kazooie pointed out gleefully. "Ha, what's that old hag thinking, leaving this lying around where anyone could grab it? Lets get a closer look, come on!"

Banjo had hardly taken a step closer to the treasure chest, however, when Bottles spoke. "Sorry you two," the mole said from nowhere, startling them both. "But you won't find any gold in that chest- unless you count Jiggies. This isn't just a treasure chest, this is the entrance to the next World you'll be exploring, called Treasure Trove Cove."

"What, no treasure?" Kazooie complained, her tone disbelieving.

"None." Banjo could hear the shrug in Bottle's voice.

"Aww..." Banjo sighed, frowning. "Really?"

"Oh, come on!" Kazooie squawked. "How's that fair? We find a giant treasure chest and there's _no treasure in it?_"

"I'm afraid not," Bottles said, though he sounded more amused than apologetic.

"Hmph!" Kazooie scoffed. "What a rip-off!"

Banjo sighed again. "That's too bad," he said, disappointed. "I would have liked to find some treasure..."

"Huh, you and me both," Kazooie muttered sourly. Banjo got the impression that her hopes for riches had just been lifted and then severely dashed.

Shaking aside his own thoughts of rubies, diamonds, emeralds, and golden doubloons, the stuff of pirate legend, Banjo said encouragingly, "Well, at least we found the entrance to the next World, Kazooie!"

"Well, yeah," Kazooie agreed, slightly cheered. "One step closer to taking at whack at that witch!"

"And saving Tooty," Banjo added.

She nodded. "That too. Alright then, lets go!" she said.

"Jump into the chest and you'll be teleported to Treasure Trove Cove, like you were when you passed through the doorway to Mumbo's Mountain," Bottles explained as Banjo stepped to the base of the chest. "Good luck, you two. This World will be much harder than the last, so be careful!"

Somewhat alarmed by Bottles' warning, Banjo gulped. "Okay, Bottles, we will."

With Kazooie's help, Banjo backflipped with the Flap Flip high into the air, and landed lightly on the rim of the treasure chest, easily keeping his balance on the wide rim.

The inside of the chest was a pool of blackness, vanishing down into darkness that appeared to be without end.

"Well..." He hesitated. It didn't look very welcoming... Steeling himself, he glanced back at his feathered partner. "Are you ready to go, Kazooie?"

"Completely!" The breegull's call was a mixture of impatience and the excitement of adventure. "Lets get going!"

Without dithering any longer, Banjo sprang from the rim of the chest and tumbled down into the blackness of its depths, passing through the entrance to Treasure Trove Cove World.


	8. Just a note

Hi folks, here I am again with another piece of news I hope you won't find disappointing.

The only way that I can see to continue to novelize this Banjo-Kazooie game is to simply recite again and again that they picked up this item and they picked up that item and describe the area that they picked it up in. Now that Banjo and Kazooie know most of their moves, there's even less to write about than in the previous chapters.

I love Banjo-Kazooie and a few years back I thought making it into a novel would be an awesome project, and it was for a while. But I didn't think far enough ahead into the fact that I'd run out of things to say beyond describing the new areas they're in, and how they'd use the same moves again and again to complete them. I just don't think that I can do justice to future chapters and so I'm going to end it here, reduce my personal stress and look to future projects.

I thank you for your time and attention to my story, and I hope you'll stick with me with my Lion King stories.

Speaking of novelizations, a Spyro story has been bouncing around in my head for quite some time. I'm hoping to find that it would make a much better novelization than Banjo-Kazooie. I'm seriously considering giving it a try. If you're interested in such a project, then follow me as an author for a notification if/when I jump into it. I'd really appreciate it. I know authors often say that they do it for the love of writing, and I can assure you that is exactly why I do it. However, it feels really good when I get a little feedback, and I hope you'll check out my other projects.

Thank you very much for coming with me this far, and thank you especially to those who became friends through this effort.


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